Put , and . The chain rule yields
For every nonzero vector , the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives
Thus the Hessian is a positive-definite matrix everywhere. The Hessian criterion for convexity implies that is strictly convex on . Its unique global minimum is at , where .
The Hessian criterion for convexity, in the usual twice-differentiable multivariate setting, is
Thus the Hessian matrix must be a positive semidefinite matrix everywhere. The criterion follows by applying the second-derivative criterion for convexity to each line restriction , whose second derivative is . Continuous second partials are a sufficient regularity hypothesis for this line-restriction argument.