Weak minimizers, minimizers and variational inequalities for set-valued functions: a blooming wreath?

Recently, necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of variational inequalities have been introduced to characterize minimizers of convex set-valued functions. Similar results have been proved for a weaker concept of minimizers and weaker variational inequalities. The implications are proved using scalarization techniques that eventually provide original problems, not fully equivalent to the set-valued counterparts. Therefore, we try, in the course of this note, to close the network among the various notions proposed. More specifically, we prove that a minimizer is always a weak minimizer, and a solution to the stronger variational inequality always also a solution to the weak variational inequality of the same type. As a special case, we obtain a complete characterization of efficiency and weak efficiency in vector optimization by set-valued variational inequalities and their scalarizations. Indeed, this might eventually prove the usefulness of the set optimization approach to renew the study of vector optimization