This cropped up in a research question I'm tackling.
I wish to solve the following optimization problem:
$$
\text{minimize}\ \sum\_{i=1}^\infty f\_i \sum\_{j=1}^i \sqrt{f\_j}
\quad\text{subject to}\ \sum\_{i=1}^\infty f\_i=1\ \text{and}\ f\_i \in [0,1]\ \forall i.
$$


My attempt was to apply calculus of variation, and adding the normalization constraint with a Lagrange multiplier:
$$
S\_\lambda := \sum\_{i=1}^\infty f\_i \sum\_{j=1}^i \sqrt{f\_j} + \lambda\left(1-\sum\_{i=1}^\infty f\_i \right)
$$
and then vary
$$
\frac{\delta S\_\lambda}{\delta f\_a} = \sum\_{j=1}^a \sqrt{f\_j} + \frac12 \frac{1}{\sqrt{f\_a}} \sum\_{i=a}^\infty f\_i -\lambda \overset!= 0
\quad\forall a
$$
*(My first question is: can I even apply calculus of variation in this setting? And, if so, is the expression above correct? I asked a colleague to check who couldn't find any mistake, but you know how it is sometimes.)*


Under the assumption that the variation is correct, I then solved the first and last equation via
\begin{align}
 0= \frac{\delta S\_\lambda}{\delta f\_1} &= \sqrt{f\_1} + \frac12 \frac{1}{\sqrt{f\_1}}\underbrace{\sum\_{i=1}^\infty f\_i}\_{=1} - \lambda
&\Rightarrow\quad \lambda &= \frac{1+2f\_1}{2 \sqrt{f\_1}} \\
 0= \lim\_{a\rightarrow\infty} \frac{\delta S\_\lambda}{\delta f\_a} &= - \lambda + \underbrace{\lim\_{a\rightarrow\infty} \sum\_{i=1}^a \sqrt{f\_i}}\_{=:A\_\infty} + \frac12 \underbrace{\lim\_{a\rightarrow\infty}\frac{1}{\sqrt{f\_a}} \sum\_{i=a}^\infty f\_i}\_{=:B\_\infty} &\Rightarrow\quad \lambda&=A\_\infty + B\_\infty
\end{align}
As by the first line we have that $\lambda$ is finite, both limits must exist. The first sum converges when $f\_i = o(1/i^2)$, in which case $B\_\infty=0$ and $\lambda = A\_\infty$.


*But how to proceed? I don't see a good way of e.g. solving this set of equations recursively.*


I'd be grateful for any pointers!



Calculus of variations for double sum with Lagrange multiplier
The basic heuristic starts with looking at the continous analog
$$
\int\_0^\infty f(x) \int\_0^x \sqrt{f(y)} \,dy \, dx ,
$$
which has Dirac sequences at 0 as minimizing sequences with value 0. Regarding the discrete system as a regularization of the continuum one, one might think that $f\_1=1$ and $f\_i=0$ for $i\geq 2$ is a candidate, giving value $1$ for the functional.


However, the form of the Euler-Lagrange equation shows that one might gain something by distributing the mass around. Hence, a possible ansatz is $f\_i =\gamma^{i-1}(1−\gamma)$ for $\gamma\in [0,1)$, containing the case of all mass concentrated in $i=1$ as $\gamma=0$. This ansatz leads to a value of the functional of
$$
\frac{\sqrt{1-\gamma}}{1-\gamma^{\frac{3}{2}}}.
$$
The minimizer of this function in $\gamma\in [0,1)$ is given by $\gamma=\frac{2-\sqrt{3}}{2}$ with value for the functional of
$$
 \sqrt{\frac{4}{9}+\frac{8}{9 \sqrt{3}}} = 0.978593 .
$$
It is left to verify that this sequence $f\_i$ actually satisfies the Euler-Lagrange equation, which I checked via mathematica.


