Linear polyhedron 2026-10-06
A linear polyhedron is an intersection of finitely many closed affine half-spaces in finite-dimensional real space. It may be empty, unbounded, or lower-dimensional. This usage differs from a three-dimensional geometric polyhedron. The strict separation of disjoint linear polyhedra follows from linear programming duality.
If a vector gives the strict separation, a common point would satisfy , which is impossible.
For the converse, construct a phase-I linear program with a common violation variable:
where is unrestricted. This linear program is feasible for sufficiently large , bounded below by zero, and attains its optimum. If the two linear polyhedra are disjoint, its optimum is strictly positive: an attained zero optimum would give a common point.
For nonnegative vectors , its optimization Lagrangian is
Taking the infimum over and gives the Lagrangian dual problem
By strong duality for linear programming, an optimal dual pair exists and has objective . It supplies the infeasibility certificate
Take . Every and obeys
The assumed nonemptiness of each linear polyhedron also ensures : if , their feasibility would force both and to be nonnegative. This proves the strict separation of disjoint linear polyhedra using Lagrangian duality.