When Rates Are Geometric: Rate-Certificate Transfer for Contact Splittings in Optimization

Discrete optimization algorithms are often analyzed through continuous-time limiting ODEs, but a convergence certificate for the ODE is not automatically one for the discrete algorithm. We develop contact Hamiltonian systems as a setting where the transfer can be made precise. A contact Hamiltonian H on J1(ℝn) obeys the intrinsic decay identity dot H = -H,partials H, so an augmented energy E built from H, together with the conformal rate partials H, is a continuous-time rate certificate whenever E controls the objective gap. Our main theorem states, under three named and independently checkable hypotheses, that an order-r contact splitting with step h transfers this certificate over the finite horizon set by backward error analysis. The discrete decay envelope is governed by the modified conformal factor up to O(hr) perturbations plus a backward-error shadowing defect, and the mechanism is inherited exactly because the modified Hamiltonian is itself a contact Hamiltonian. Quadratic heavy ball is a fully solvable example: its projected dissipative-leapfrog spectrum agrees with established conformal-symplectic optimization theory, while the augmented contact Hamiltonian yields a sharp objective-to-certificate comparison that verifies the transfer hypotheses. For strongly convex objectives with state-dependent damping, an explicit Bregman-type Lyapunov certificate instead transfers by an auxiliary-shadowing corollary. The decomposition H=K+V+D into kinetic, objective-encoding potential, and dissipation terms serves as a design template, with a catalogue of closed-form sub-flows including contact-specific damping families. Numerical experiments confirm the predicted conformal-factor tracking orders and show competitive performance on ill-conditioned benchmarks and deep-learning tasks.