The CP-matrix Approximation Problem

A symmetric matrix $A$ is completely positive (CP) if there exists an entrywise nonnegative matrix $V$ such that $A = V V ^T$. In this paper, we study the CP-matrix approximation problem of projecting a matrix onto the intersection of a set of linear constraints and the cone of CP matrices. We formulate the problem as the linear optimization with the norm cone and the cone of moments. A semidefinite algorithm is presented for the problem. A CP-decomposition of the projection matrix can also be obtained if the problem is feasible.