Toric cubes

A toric cube is a subset of the standard cube defined by binomial inequalities. These basic semialgebraic sets are precisely the images of standard cubes under monomial maps. We study toric cubes from the perspective of topological combinatorics. Explicit decompositions as CW-complexes are constructed. Their open cells are interiors of toric cubes and their boundaries are subcomplexes. The motivating example of a toric cube is the edge-product space in phylogenetics, and our work generalizes results known for that space.     

Uniform oriented matroids without the isotopy property

We give an easy general construction for uniform oriented matroids with disconnected realization space. This disproves the longstanding isotopy conjecture for simple line arrangements or order types in the plane.The research of Bernd Sturmfels and Neil White was supported in part by the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications with funds provided by the National Science Foundation.     

Computing Final Polynomials and Final Syzygies Using Buchberger’s Gröbner Bases Method

Final polynomials and final syzygies provide an explicit representation of polynomial identities promised by Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz. Such representations have been studied independently by Bokowski [2,3,4] and Whiteley [23,24] to derive invariant algebraic proofs for statements in geometry. In the present paper we relate these methods to some recent developments in computational algebraic geometry. As the main new result we give an algorithm based on B. Buchberger’s Gröbner bases method for computing final polynomials and final syzygies over the complex numbers. Degree upper bound for final polynomials are derived from theorems of Lazard and Brownawell, and a topological criterion is proved for the existence of final syzygies. The second part of this paper is expository and discusses applications of our algorithm to real projective geometry, invariant theory and matrix theory.     

The Central Curve in Linear Programming

The central curve of a linear program is an algebraic curve specified by linear and quadratic constraints arising from complementary slackness. It is the union of the various central paths for minimizing or maximizing the cost function over any region in the associated hyperplane arrangement. We determine the degree, arithmetic genus and defining prime ideal of the central curve, thereby answering a question of Bayer and Lagarias. These invariants, along with the degree of the Gauss image of the curve, are expressed in terms of the matroid of the input matrix. Extending work of Dedieu, Malajovich and Shub, this yields an instance-specific bound on the total curvature of the central path, a quantity relevant for interior-point methods. The global geometry of central curves is studied in detail.     

Hypergeometric Polynomials and Integer Programming

We examine connections between A-hypergeometric differential equations and the theory of integer programming. In the first part, we develop a hypergeometric sensitivity analysis for small variations of constraint constants with creation operators and b-functions. In the second part, we study the indicial polynomial (b-function) along the hyperplane xi=0 via a correspondence between the optimal value of an integer programming problem and the roots of the indicial polynomial. Gröbner bases are used to prove theorems and give counter examples.     

On the coordinatization of oriented matroids

Several important and hard realizability problems of combinatorial geometry can be reduced to the realizability problem of oriented matroids. In this paper we describe a method to find a coordinatization for a large class of realizable cases. This algorithm has been used successfully to decide several geometric realizability problems. It is shown that all realizations found by our algorithm fulfill the isotopy property.     

Hypersurfaces and Their Singularities in Partial Correlation Testing

An asymptotic theory is developed for computing volumes of regions in the parameter space of a directed Gaussian graphical model that are obtained by bounding partial correlations. We study these volumes using the method of real log canonical thresholds from algebraic geometry. Our analysis involves the computation of the singular loci of correlation hypersurfaces. Statistical applications include the strong-faithfulness assumption for the PC algorithm and the quantification of confounder bias in causal inference. A detailed analysis is presented for trees, bow ties, tripartite graphs, and complete graphs.     

The hyperdeterminant and triangulations of the 4-cube

The hyperdeterminant of format is a polynomial of degree in unknowns which has terms. We compute the Newton polytope of this polynomial and the secondary polytope of the -cube. The regular triangulations of the -cube are classified into -equivalence classes, one for each vertex of the Newton polytope. The -cube has coarsest regular subdivisions, one for each facet of the secondary polytope, but only of them come from the hyperdeterminant.

     

The Geometry of Gaussoids

Foundations of Computational Mathematics - A gaussoid is a combinatorial structure that encodes independence in probability and statistics, just like matroids encode independence in linear algebra....     

The algebraic degree of semidefinite programming

Given a generic semidefinite program, specified by matrices with rational entries, each coordinate of its optimal solution is an algebraic number. We study the degree of the minimal polynomials of these algebraic numbers. Geometrically, this degree counts the critical points attained by a linear functional on a fixed rank locus in a linear space of symmetric matrices. We determine this degree using methods from complex algebraic geometry, such as projective duality, determinantal varieties, and their Chern classes.