Linear Programming Lecture Notes - Penn State Personal Web Server
Linear Programming Lecture Notes - Penn State Personal Web Server
Linear Programming Lecture Notes - Penn State Personal Web Server
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
CHAPTER 9<br />
Duality<br />
In the last chapter, we explored the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions and identified<br />
constraints called the dual feasibility constraints. In this section, we show that to each<br />
linear programming problem (the primal problem) we may associate another linear programming<br />
problem (the dual linear programming problem). These two problems are closely<br />
related to each other and an analysis of the dual problem can provide deep insight into the<br />
primal problem.<br />
1. The Dual Problem<br />
Consider the linear programming problem<br />
⎧<br />
⎪⎨ max c<br />
(9.1) P<br />
⎪⎩<br />
T x<br />
s.t. Ax ≤ b<br />
x ≥ 0<br />
Then the dual problem for Problem P is:<br />
⎧<br />
⎪⎨<br />
min wb<br />
(9.2) D s.t. wA ≥ c<br />
⎪⎩<br />
w ≥ 0<br />
Remark 9.1. Let v be a vector of surplus variables. Then we can transform Problem<br />
D into standard form as:<br />
⎧<br />
min wb<br />
⎪⎨ s.t. wA − v = c<br />
(9.3) DS<br />
w ≥ 0<br />
⎪⎩<br />
v ≥ 0<br />
Thus we already see an intimate relationship between duality and the KKT conditions. The<br />
feasible region of the dual problem (in standard form) is precisely the the dual feasibility<br />
constraints of the KKT conditions for the primal problem.<br />
In this formulation, we see that we have assigned a dual variable wi (i = 1, . . . , m) to<br />
each constraint in the system of equations Ax ≤ b of the primal problem. Likewise dual<br />
variables v can be thought of as corresponding to the constraints in x ≥ 0.<br />
Lemma 9.2. The dual of the dual problem is the primal problem.<br />
137