Upper semismooth functions and the subdifferential determination property

Abstract

In this paper, an upper semismooth function is defined to be a lower semicontinuous function whose radial subderivative satisfies a mild directional upper semicontinuity property. Examples of upper semismooth functions are the proper lower semicontinuous convex functions, the lower-C$^1$ functions, the regular directionally Lipschitz functions, the Mifflin semismooth functions, the Thibault-Zagrodny directionally stable functions. It is shown that the radial subderivative of such functions can be recovered from any subdifferential of the function. It is also shown that these functions are subdifferentially determined, in the sense that if two functions have the same subdifferential and one of the functions is upper semismooth, then the two functions are equal up to an additive constant.