Vietnam J. Math.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10013-018-0281-3

Stability of p-Order Metric Regularity

Yiran He1 · Kung Fu Ng2

Received: 4 February 2017 / Accepted: 28 December 2017

© Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

Abstract This paper shows, in the metric space setting, that the p-order metric regularity is
preserved under perturbation by locally Hölder continuous mappings of order 1/p, extend-
ing a classical result which says that 1-order metric regularity is preserved under perturba-
tion by locally Lipschitz mappings (see Theorem 3.3 in (Dontchev et al., Trans. Am. Math.
Soc. 355:493–517, 2003) and Theorem 1 in (Dontchev, Optimization 64:41–48, 2015)) by
allowing p ∈ (0, 1]. The argument is based on a new result of fixed point theorem type.

Keywords p-order metric regularity · Perturbation · Hölder continuous mapping · Fixed

point theorem

Mathematics Subject Classification (2010) 49J53 · 49K40

1 Introduction

Assume that X is a complete metric space and Y is a linear metric space with translation-
invariant metric, and G : X → 2Y is a set-valued mapping. Let y0 ∈ G(x0 ) and p > 0 be a

This paper is dedicated to Michel Théra for his 70th birthday.

 Yiran He
yrhe@sicnu.edu.cn
Kung Fu Ng
kfng@math.cuhk.edu.hk

1 Department of Mathematics, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

2 Department of Mathematics and Institute of Mathematical Sciences,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong
 Y. He, K. F. Ng

real scalar. The set-valued mapping G is said to be p-order metrically regular at (x0 , y0 ), if
there exist c > 0 and δ > 0 such that
d(x, G−1 (y)) ≤ cd(y, G(x))p ∀ x ∈ B(x0 , δ), y ∈ B(y0 , δ). (1)
Here, d(x, S) := infs∈S d(x, s) denotes the distance from x to a set S. Let B(x, r) denote
the open ball with center x and radius r, and let B(x, r) denote the corresponding closed
ball. Yen et al. [15] and Frankowska and Quincampoix [5] discuss various equivalent char-
acterizations of p-order metric regularity, and [10] studies the so-called p-order metric
subregularity which fixes y = y0 in (1). We refer to [6] for more general extension of p-
order metric regularity, where the focus is still on various equivalent characterizations. If
p = 1, then p-order metric regularity reduces to the classical metric regularity, which has
been extensively studied in the literature; see [12, 13], [14, Section 9.G], the survey [7], and
the monographs [11] and [3].
A well-known result is that 1-order metric regularity is preserved under perturbation by
locally Lipschitz mappings; see [3, Theorem 5E.1], [1, Theorem 3.3], and [2, Theorem 1],
where different arguments are given. A slightly different Lipschitz perturbation of the so-
called Aubin property, which is equivalent to the metric regularity, is studied in [9]. A
question is proposed in the last paragraph of [2] whether p-order metric regularity is pre-
served under a certain kind of perturbation. Theorem 3 of this paper shows that p-order
metric regularity is preserved under perturbation by locally Hölder continuous mappings,
with the proof based on Theorem 1, a new fixed point theorem. Theorem 1 itself is an
extension of Theorem 5E.2 of [3] (see also [4]).

2 Main Results

For our purpose, we first present below a fixed point theorem which improves the existing
standard version.

Theorem 1 Let δ > 0, θ ∈ (0, 1), x̄ ∈ X, and  : B(x̄, δ) → 2X \ {∅} satisfy the following
properties:
(i) For each η ∈ (0, δ), the intersection of the graph of  with B(x̄, η)×B(x̄, η) is closed;
(ii)
d(x̄, (x̄)) < (1 − θ)δ, (2)
d(x, (x)) ≤ θ d(x, −1 (x)) for all x ∈ B(x̄, δ). (3)
Then for any β > 0, there exists z ∈ B(x̄, δ) such that z ∈ (z) and
1+β
d(z, x̄) ≤ d(x̄, (x̄)).
1−θ

Proof Assume that x̄ is not a fixed point of  (otherwise, the result holds trivially). We
claim that
d(x̄, (x̄)) > 0.
If not, i.e., d(x̄, (x̄)) = 0, then there exists un ∈ (x̄) such that un → x̄. Thus
(x̄, un ) belongs to the graph of , and given η ∈ (0, δ) we may assume that {(x̄, un )} ⊂
B(x̄, η) × B(x̄, η). It follows from the assumption (i) that (x̄, x̄) belongs to the graph of ,
contradicting our assumption that x̄ is not a fixed point of . Thus, our claim stands.
Stability of p-Order Metric Regularity

(1−θ)δ (1−θ)δ
By (2), d(x̄,(x̄)) − 1 > 0. We may assume that 0 < β < d(x̄,(x̄)) − 1. Then,
d(x̄, (x̄)) < r < (1 − θ)δ, (4)
where r := (1 + β)d(x̄, (x̄)). Then, there exists some x1 ∈ (x̄) such that d(x1 , x̄) < r.
By the assumption (3), it follows that
d(x1 , (x1 )) ≤ θ d(x1 , −1 (x1 )) ≤ θ d(x1 , x̄) < θr.
Therefore, there exists x2 ∈ (x1 ) such that d(x2 , x1 ) < θ r, which implies by the triangle
inequality that
d(x2 , x̄) ≤ d(x2 , x1 ) + d(x1 , x̄) < θr + r = (1 + θ)r < (1 − θ)−1 r < δ,
where the last inequality follows from (4).
Using the assumption (3) again yields
d(x2 , (x2 )) ≤ θ d(x2 , x1 ) < θ 2 r.
It follows that there exists x3 ∈ (x2 ) such that d(x3 , x2 ) < θ 2 r, which implies that
d(x3 , x̄) ≤ d(x3 , x2 ) + d(x2 , x1 ) + d(x1 , x̄) < (1 − θ)−1 r < δ.
In this way, we obtain a sequence {xn } satisfying the following properties:
d(xn , x̄) < (1 − θ)−1 r; xn+1 ∈ (xn ); d(xn+1 , xn ) < θ n r. (5)
The last property implies that {xn } is a Cauchy sequence, and hence converges to an element
z. The first property implies that d(z, x̄) ≤ (1 − θ)−1 r < δ, so
1+β
z ∈ B(x̄, δ) and d(z, x̄) ≤ d(x̄, (x̄)),
1−θ
by the definition of r (see (4)). Making use of the assumption (i), applied to (1 − θ)−1 r in
place of η, together with the first two properties in (5), one also has z ∈ (z). Thus, z has
the desired properties.

If the space is a Banach space of finite dimension, the estimation of the distance between
a fixed point and x̄ can be sharpened. In this case, one can take β = 0 in the proof and use
the fact that the best approximation is attained in finite dimensional Banach spaces.

Theorem 2 In Theorem 1, we assume additionally that X is a Banach space of finite

dimension. Then there exists ξ ∈ B(x̄, δ) such that ξ ∈ (ξ ) and d(ξ, x̄) ≤ 1−θ
1
d(x̄, (x̄)).

Remark 1 Assume that  : B(x̄, δ) → 2X is a contraction, that is, there exists θ ∈ (0, 1)
such that
H ((x), (y)) ≤ θ d(x, y) ∀ x, y ∈ B(x̄, δ),
where H (C, D) := max{supx∈C d(x, D), supy∈D d(y, C)} stands for the Hausdorff metric.
Note that, if  takes closed values, then the graph of the restriction of  on each closed
K
subset K of B(x̄, δ) is closed because when yn ∈ (xn ), xn → x and yn → y, one has
d(y, (x)) ≤ d(y, yn ) + d(yn , (xn )) + H ((xn ), (x)) ≤ d(y, yn ) + θ d(xn , x) → 0,
showing that y ∈ (x). Thus, Theorem 1 generalizes the classical contraction fixed point
theorem (see [8]).

The following result shows that p-order metric regularity is preserved under perturbation
by Hölder continuous mappings of order 1/p, which not only covers [1, Theorem 3.3]
 Y. He, K. F. Ng

but also answers affirmatively the problem posed by Dontchev [2] (see the last paragraph
therein).

Theorem 3 Let H (x) := G(x) + h(x) where G : X → 2Y and h : X → Y . Let y0 ∈ G(x0 )

and η > 0. Assume that
(i) the graph of G is locally closed around (x0 , y0 );
(ii) there exist c > 0 and p > 0 such that
d(x, G−1 (y)) ≤ cd(y, G(x))p ∀ x ∈ B(x0 , η), y ∈ B(y0 , η), (6)
1
d(h(x), h(z)) ≤ kd(x, z) p ∀ x, z ∈ B(x0 , η), (7)
− p1
where k ∈ (0, c ).
Then there exists r > 0 such that for all x ∈ B(x0 , r) and y ∈ B(y0 + h(x0 ), r),
c
d(x, H −1 (y)) ≤ d(y, H (x))p . (8)
1 − ck p

 − 1 1 −1 
Proof Let c1 := min 1, c−1 , c p η p . Since (y0 + h(x0 )) − h(x0 ) = y0 , the continuity
of the addition and the mapping h imply the existence of δ ∈ (0, η) such that
B(y0 + h(x0 ), δ) − h(B(x0 , δ)) ⊂ B(y0 , c1 η). (9)
Let α := δ/2. Noting the convergence d(x, x0 ) + cd(y, h(x) + y0 )p → 0 as x → x0 and
y → h(x0 ) + y0 , there exists r ∈ (0, δ/2) such that
d(x, x0 ) + cd(y, h(x) + y0 )p < (1 − ck p )α ∀x ∈ B(x0 , r), y ∈ B(y0 + h(x0 ), r). (10)
Then, r has the desired property stated in (8). To show this, let us fix an arbitrary pair (x, y)
with x ∈ B(x0 , r) and y ∈ B(y0 + h(x0 ), r). Note that, by (9),
y − h(x) ∈ B(y0 , c1 η) ⊂ B(y0 , η), (11)
and so it follows from (6) that
d(x, G−1 (y − h(x))) ≤ cd(y − h(x), G(x))p . (12)
Define T : B(x, α) → 2X by
T (ξ ) := {z : y ∈ h(ξ ) + G(z)}.
Then T (ξ ) = G−1 (y − h(ξ )) for each ξ ∈ B(x, α), and
ξ ∈ T (ξ ) ⇐⇒ y ∈ h(ξ ) + G(ξ ) ⇐⇒ ξ ∈ H −1 (y). (13)
We will check that the quadruple (T , α, x, ck p ) satisfies the condition required in Theorem 1
for (, δ, x̄, θ), namely
(I) T is of nonempty values;
(II) for any σ ∈ (0, α), the intersection of the graph of T with B(x, σ ) × B(x, σ ) is
closed;
(III) the following two inequalities hold:
d(x, T (x)) ≤ (1 − ck p )α, (14)
d(ξ, T (ξ )) ≤ ck p d(ξ, T −1 (ξ )) ∀ ξ ∈ B(x, α). (15)
Stability of p-Order Metric Regularity

Granting these, Theorem 1 enables us to get the following fact. For any β > 0, there exists
a fixed point ξ̄ ∈ T (ξ̄ ) (so ξ̄ ∈ H −1 (y) by (13)) with d(ξ̄ , x) ≤ 1−ck
1+β
p d(x, T (x)). Then, by
(12), one has
1+β
d(x, H −1 (y)) ≤ d(ξ̄ , x) ≤ d(x, T (x))
1 − ck p
1+β
= d(x, G−1 (y − h(x)))
1 − ck p
(1 + β)c
≤ d(y − h(x), G(x))p
1 − ck p
(1 + β)c
= d(y, H (x))p .
1 − ck p
In other words, for any β > 0,
(1 + β)c
d(x, H −1 (y)) ≤ d(y, H (x))p .
1 − ck p
Letting β → 0+, one establishes (8). Thus, it remains to show the assertions (I)–(III).
For (I), take any ξ ∈ B(x, α). Then ξ ∈ B(x0 , δ). By (9), y − h(ξ ) ∈ B(y0 , η). Applying
(6) to x0 and y − h(ξ ) in place of x and y, respectively, one has
d(x0 , G−1 (y − h(ξ ))) ≤ cd(y − h(ξ ), G(x0 ))p
≤ cd(y, h(ξ ) + y0 )p < +∞.
Thus T (ξ ) = G−1 (y − h(ξ )) = ∅ for each ξ ∈ B(x, α).
For (II), note that G is locally closed around (x0 , y0 ), we may assume that the intersection
of the graph of G and B(x0 , η) × B(y0 , η) is a closed set. Let σ ∈ (0, α) and let {ξn }, {xn }
be two sequences in B(x, σ ) satisfying that xn ∈ T (ξn ), ξn → ξ̄ , xn → x̄. Obviously,
ξ̄ , x̄ ∈ B(x, α). Since xn ∈ T (ξn ), the definition of T implies
y − h(ξn ) ∈ G(xn ).
Noting that B(x, α) ⊂ B(x0 , δ) ⊂ B(x0 , η), it follows from (11) that
(xn , y − h(ξn )) ∈ Gr(G) ∩ B(x0 , η) × B(y0 , η).
Hence, by passing to the limit, we have y − h(ξ̄ ) ∈ G(x̄) and so x̄ ∈ T (ξ̄ ).
For (III), by (6) (applied with x0 in place of x), one has
d(x, T (x)) = d(x, G−1 (y − h(x))) ≤ d(x, x0 ) + d(x0 , G−1 (y − h(x)))
≤ d(x, x0 ) + cd(y − h(x), G(x0 ))p
≤ d(x, x0 ) + cd(y, h(x) + y0 )p
< (1 − ck p )α,
where the third inequality and the last inequality follows from y0 ∈ G(x0 ) and (10), respec-
tively. Thus, (14) is true. Next, let ξ ∈ B(x, α); to verify (15), we may assume that T −1 (ξ )
is nonempty and it suffices to show that
d(ξ, T (ξ )) ≤ ck p d(ξ, ζ ) ∀ ζ ∈ T −1 (ξ ). (16)
To do this, let ζ ∈ T −1 (ξ ). Then, as T is defined on B(x, α), one has ζ ∈ B(x, α) and
ξ ∈ T (ζ ), which implies
y − h(ζ ) ∈ G(ξ ). (17)
 Y. He, K. F. Ng

Since ξ ∈ B(x, α) ⊂ B(x0 , δ), it follows from (9) that y − h(ξ ) ∈ B(y0 , η). One can apply
(6), (17), and (7) to obtain that
d(ξ, T (ξ )) = d(ξ, G−1 (y − h(ξ ))) ≤ cd(y − h(ξ ), G(ξ ))p
≤ cd(h(ξ ), h(ζ ))p ≤ ck p d(ξ, ζ ),
showing (16). This completes the proof.

We end this section with a simple example showing a natural case when (7) is satisfied.

Example 1 Let p ∈ (0, 1), and X := {x ∈ Rn : xi ≥ 1 ∀i} be equipped with the metric
defined by

n
d(x, y) := |xi − yi |p . (18)
i=1
Then, X is a complete metric space in the metric defined in (18). Let Y be Rn associated
with the q-norm  · q (q ≥ 1). Define h : X → Y by
h(x) = (x1 p , . . . , xn p ).
One has

 n
 p 
n 
n
h(x) − h(y)q = 
p
q
(xi − yi )q ≤ |xi p − yi p | ≤ |xi − yi |
i=1 i=1 i=1
 1/p

n
≤ |xi − yi |p
i=1
= d(x, y)1/p ∀ x, y ∈ X.
That is, the mapping h satisfies the condition (7).

3 Conclusions

A new fixed point theorem of contraction type is established in this paper, from which
we obtain the stability of p-order metric regularity under perturbation by locally Hölder
continuous mappings with exponent 1/p. It is shown that if a set-valued mapping G is p-
order metrically regular with modulus c, h is Hölder continuous with exponent 1/p and
1
modulus k, and 0 < kc p < 1, then G + h is p-order metrically regular with modulus 1−ck c
p.
This result answers a question proposed in [2] and covers the well-known case when p = 1;
see [2, Theorem 1]. Theorem 1 extends Theorem 5E.2 of [3] in the contraction condition:
The contraction condition (b) of Theorem 5E.2 of [3] implies the contraction condition (3)
of Theorem 1. However, the converse implication is not apparent for verification. Indeed
the argument given in our proof is also effective if one uses Theorem 5E.2 of [3] to replace
Theorem 1. Though our argument allows p to be an arbitrary positive scalar, p-order metric
regularity for p > 1 might be no sense, as pointed by [10], especially when the space X is
a normed linear space.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to the referees for valuable comments. The first author was partially
supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant 11271274. The work of the second
author was supported by an Earmarked Grant (GRF) from the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong (Project
no: CUHK 14304014, 14302516).
Stability of p-Order Metric Regularity

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