Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/iii/paper-325/1/ii/solution

Write for the infimal convolution. It is proper by the permitted hypothesis. If and are finite, choose within of their respective infima. For , put and . Convexity of and gives
Let . If either endpoint value is infinite, the desired inequality is automatic. Thus the infimal convolution is convex, without assuming the infimum is attained.
For its convex conjugate, replace a negative infimum by a supremum and then change variables :
The two suprema separate because and are independent. Properness of and makes each supremum strictly greater than , so this separation remains valid when one or both are . Therefore . This is the conjugate of an infimal convolution. The bounded-domain assumption is unnecessary for these two calculations; the assumed properness and lower semicontinuity of will be used when applying subgradient inversion under convex conjugacy.

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