Polynomial systems with few real zeroes

We study some systems of polynomials whose support lies in the convex hull of a circuit, giving a sharp upper bound for their numbers of real solutions. This upper bound is non-trivial in that it is smaller than either the Kouchnirenko or the Khovanskii bounds for these systems. When the support is exactly a circuit whose affine span is ℤⁿ, this bound is 2n+1, while the Khovanskii bound is exponential in n². The bound 2n+1 can be attained only for non-degenerate circuits. Our methods involve a mixture of combinatorics, geometry, and arithmetic. Part of work done at MSRI was supported by NSF grant DMS-9810361. Work of Sottile is supported by the Clay Mathematical Institute. Sottile and Bihan were supported in part by NSF CAREER grant DMS-0134860. Bertrand is supported by the European research network IHP-RAAG contract HPRN-CT-2001-00271.