  Convex optimization is a well-established research area with applications in
almost all fields. Over the decades, multiple approaches have been proposed to
solve convex programs. The development of interior-point methods allowed
solving a more general set of convex programs known as semi-definite programs
and second-order cone programs. However, it has been established that these
methods are excessively slow for high dimensions, i.e., they suffer from the
curse of dimensionality. On the other hand, optimization algorithms on manifold
have shown great ability in finding solutions to nonconvex problems in
reasonable time. This paper is interested in solving a subset of convex
optimization using a different approach. The main idea behind Riemannian
optimization is to view the constrained optimization problem as an
unconstrained one over a restricted search space. The paper introduces three
manifolds to solve convex programs under particular box constraints. The
manifolds, called the doubly stochastic, symmetric and the definite multinomial
manifolds, generalize the simplex also known as the multinomial manifold. The
proposed manifolds and algorithms are well-adapted to solving convex programs
in which the variable of interest is a multidimensional probability
distribution function. Theoretical analysis and simulation results testify the
efficiency of the proposed method over state of the art methods. In particular,
they reveal that the proposed framework outperforms conventional generic and
specialized solvers, especially in high dimensions.
