# Derive steepest descent vector subject to norm constraint

I am currently working through an old textbook Practical Optimization by Gill, Murray and Wright (c 1982) who make some derivations which seem correct, but I am unable to duplicate. In the equations below $g$ and $p$ are both vectors. $g$ is the gradient from the current iterate of a optimization procedure and $p$ is the search direction we wish to solve for.

The authors inform the reader that the minimum (over $p$) of

$\Large\frac{g'p}{||p||}$ is $p=-g$.

Alternatively, we might form a different norm for $p$ by considering a symmetric positive definite matrix $C$ in which case the minimizer of

$\Large\frac{g'p}{(p'Cp)^{1/2}}$ is $p=-C^{-1}g$.

I am having trouble deriving these statements.

My question is: Does it take more than a derivative and setting equal to zero to prove this? If so, how do I derive these formulas?

This question is similar to

but not identical. This other question deals with solutions that are unit length, not necessarily step directions which are unit length.

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Note that if $p$ is a minimizer in the above problems, then so is $\lambda p$, where $\lambda >0$. –  copper.hat Jan 28 '13 at 3:49

This is a simple application of Cauchy-Schwarz.

$(g^Tp)^2 \leq \|g\|^2 \|p\|^2.$

So, $-\|g\| \leq \frac{g^T p}{\|p\|} \leq \|g\|$ and the lower bound is attained when $p = -g$.

Similarly, $(g^T p)^2 = \langle C^{-1/2}g , C^{1/2} p\rangle^2 \leq (g^T C^{-1} g) \times (p^T C p)$ and the lower bound is similarly attained.

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I prefer to look at the problem (which ends up being equivalent) of solving $\min \{ \langle g, h \rangle | \|h\| \leq 1 \}$. The norm is the standard $2$-norm. The reason I prefer this formulation is that it is closer in form to the original problem from which the search direction problem is derived. Also, it has a trust region flavor, which I personally find more appealing than a search direction/step length approach.
For the first problem, the Cauchy Bunyakovsky Schwartz Beiber inequality gives $|\langle g, h \rangle| \leq \|g\| \|h\|$, hence it is easy to see that the minimum is $\min \{ \langle g, h \rangle \,|\, \|h\| \leq 1 \} = - \|g\|$, and the minimizer is (it is unique with the $2$-norm) $h = -\frac{1}{\|g\|} g$. You could also derive this by noting that (if $g\neq 0$), the constraint $\|h\| \leq 1$ must be active, and use Lagrange multipliers to obtain the same result.
For the second, let $A^TA = C$ be the Cholesky decomposition of $C$. The problem is now $\min \{ \langle g, h \rangle \,|\, \|Ah\| \leq 1 \} = \min \{ \langle g, h \rangle \,|\, \|\delta\| \leq 1, \, h= A^{-1}\delta \}$. This is equivalent to $\min \{ \langle g, A^{-1}\delta \rangle \,|\, \|\delta\| \leq 1 \} = \min \{ \langle (A^{-1})^T g, \delta \rangle \,|\, \|\delta\| \leq 1 \}$, where $h = A^{-1}\delta$, and the first problem shows that the minimum is $-\|(A^{-1})^T g\|$ and the minimizer is $\delta = -\frac{1}{\|(A^{-1})^T g\|} (A^{-1})^Tg$, or in terms of the original problem $h = A^{-1}\delta = -\frac{1}{\|(A^{-1})^T g\|} A^{-1}(A^{-1})^Tg$. Since $A^TA = C$, we have $\|(A^{-1})^T g\| = \sqrt{\langle (A^{-1})^T g, (A^{-1})^T g \rangle} = \sqrt{\langle g, C^{-1} g \rangle}$, and $h = -\frac{1}{\sqrt{\langle g, C^{-1} g \rangle}} C^{-1} g$.