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A variational approach to stochastic minimization of convex functionals

Stochastic methods for minimizing a convex integral functional, as initiated by Robbins and Monro in the early 1950s, rely on the evaluation of a gradient (or subgradient if the function is not smooth) and moving in the corresponding direction. In contrast, we use a variational technique resulting in an implicit stochastic minimization method, which has recently appeared in several diverse contexts. Such an approach is desirable whenever the underlying space does not have a differentiable structure and moreover it exhibits better stability properties which makes it preferable even in linear spaces. Our results are formulated in locally compact Hadamard spaces, but they are new even in Euclidean space, the main novelty being more general growth conditions on the functional. We verify that the assumptions of our convergence theorem are satisfied in a few classical minimization problems.