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I tried to solve a rather simple optimization problem, which Mathematica apparently cannot handle. A minimal example is the following:

Minimize[{a^2*Exp[-b^2], b > 0}, a, Reals]

(* Minimize[{a^2 E^-b^2, b > 0}, a, Reals] *)

Obviously, the answer should have been {0, {a -> 0}}. The minimization works when I drop the exponential term. My Mathematica version is 10.2.0 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (July 29, 2015).

Are there any options I need to set to aid Mathematica in solving the above minimization or is this simply a bug, which I should report to Wolfram?

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    $\begingroup$ Have a look at NMinimize. $\endgroup$ – b.gates.you.know.what Aug 4 '15 at 13:48
  • $\begingroup$ Well, I have a more complicated expression with more parameters and I'd like to get the minimum as a function of these parameters. I also believe that the above minimization is simple enough that it could be solved analytically. $\endgroup$ – David Zwicker Aug 4 '15 at 14:55
  • $\begingroup$ If your expression is non polynomial I don't think Minimize will handle it. $\endgroup$ – b.gates.you.know.what Aug 4 '15 at 15:06
  • $\begingroup$ I understand that non-linear optimization is hard, but there are a couple of examples in the documentation. Also my optimization problem is polynomial in a, the parameter I optimize for. It would be sufficient if the function realizes that the factor Exp[-b^2] is non-negative. $\endgroup$ – David Zwicker Aug 4 '15 at 15:13
  • $\begingroup$ If you replace Exp[-b^2] with c, then you get an answer (although if you put in the constraint c > 0, that seems to be ignored). As @b.gatessucks states, Minimize seems to only deal with polynomials and I vaguely remember responses either here or a commmunity.wolfram.com stating so. $\endgroup$ – JimB Aug 4 '15 at 18:22
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How about approaching the minization using derivatives?

Solve[D[a^2*Exp[-b^2], a] == 0, a]
{{a -> 0}}
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  • $\begingroup$ That's a good solution, but I'm still surprised that Mathematica cannot solve the original problem. I guess I underestimate the difficulty of such code. $\endgroup$ – David Zwicker Aug 4 '15 at 17:53

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