December 19, 2018
We introduce a new technique to prove connectivity of subsets of covering spaces (so called inductive connectivity), and apply it to Galois theory of problems of enumerative geometry. As a model example, consider the problem of permuting the roots of a complex polynomial $f(x) = c_0 + c_1 x^{d_1} + \ldots + c_k x^{d_k}$ by varying its coefficients. If the GCD of the exponents is $d$, then the polynomial admits the change of variable $y=x^d$, and its roots split into necklaces of length $d$. At best we can expect to permute these necklaces, i.e. the Galois group of $f$ equals the wreath product of the symmetric group over $d_k/d$ elements and $\mathbb{Z}/d\mathbb{Z}$. The aim of this paper is to prove this equality and study its multidimensional generalization: we show that the Galois group of a general system of polynomial equations equals the expected wreath product for a large class of systems, but in general this expected equality fails, making the problem of describing such Galois groups unexpectedly rich.
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We address two interrelated problems concerning permutation of roots of univariate polynomials whose coefficients depend on parameters. First, we compute the Galois group of polynomials $\varphi(x)\in\mathbb{C}[t_1,\cdots,t_k][x]$ over $\mathbb{C}(t_1,\cdots,t_k)$. Provided that the corresponding multivariate polynomial $\varphi(x,t_1,\cdots,t_k)$ is generic with respect to its support $A\subset \mathbb{Z}^{k+1}$, we determine the latter Galois group for any $A$. Second, we d...
August 18, 2021
As Jordan observed in 1870, just as univariate polynomials have Galois groups, so do problems in enumerative geometry. Despite this pedigree, the study of Galois groups in enumerative geometry was dormant for a century, with a systematic study only occuring in the past 15 years. We discuss the current directions of this study, including open problems and conjectures.
June 1, 2020
The prime divisors of a polynomial $P$ with integer coefficients are those primes $p$ for which $P(x) \equiv 0 \pmod{p}$ is solvable. Our main result is that the common prime divisors of any several polynomials are exactly the prime divisors of some single polynomial. By combining this result with a theorem of Ax we get that for any system $F$ of multivariate polynomial equations with integer coefficients, the set of primes $p$ for which $F$ is solvable modulo $p$ is the set ...
October 14, 2014
In 1985, Odoni showed that in characteristic $0$ the Galois group of the $n$-th iterate of the generic polynomial with degree $d$ is as large as possible. That is, he showed that this Galois group is the $n$-th wreath power of the symmetric group $S_d$. We generalize this result to positive characteristic, as well as to the generic rational function. These results can be applied to prove certain density results in number theory, two of which are presented here. This work was ...
July 17, 1996
These are the notes of my lectures at the 1996 European Congress of Mathematicians. {} Polynomials appear in mathematics frequently, and we all know from experience that low degree polynomials are easier to deal with than high degree ones. It is, however, not clear that there is a well defined class of "low degree" polynomials. For many questions, polynomials behave well if their degree is low enough, but the precise bound on the degree depends on the concrete problem. {} It ...
December 20, 2021
The solving degree of a system of multivariate polynomial equations provides an upper bound for the complexity of computing the solutions of the system via Groebner bases methods. In this paper, we consider polynomial systems that are obtained via Weil restriction of scalars. The latter is an arithmetic construction which, given a finite Galois field extension $k\hookrightarrow K$, associates to a system $\mathcal{F}$ defined over $K$ a system $\mathrm{Weil}(\mathcal{F})$ def...
September 14, 1998
Consider a system F of n polynomial equations in n unknowns, over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic. We present a fast method to find a point in every irreducible component of the zero set Z of F. Our techniques allow us to sharpen and lower prior complexity bounds for this problem by fully taking into account the monomial term structure. As a corollary of our development we also obtain new explicit formulae for the exact number of isolated roots of F ...
April 15, 2019
In this preprint we present an outline of the multidimensional version of topological Galois theory. The theory studies topological obstruction to solvability of equations "in finite terms" (i.e. to their solvability by radicals, by elementary functions, by quadratures and so on). This preprint is based on the author's book on topological Galois theory. It contains definitions, statements of results and comments to them. Basically no proofs are presented. This preprint was ...
December 30, 2021
Given a finite set $W$ in $\bar{k}^n$ where $\bar{k}$ is the algebraic closure of a field $k$ one would like to determine if $W$ can be decomposed as $\prod_{i=1}^n V_i$ where $V_i \subset \bar{k}$ under a linear transformation, that is, $W\stackrel{\lambda}{\to} \prod_{i=1}^n V_i$ where $\lambda\in Gl_n (\bar{k})$. We assume that $W$ is presented as $W=Z(\mathcal{F})$, the zero set of a polynomial system $\mathcal{F}$ in $n$ variables over $k$. We study algebraic characteriz...
December 28, 2016
The Galois group of a parameterized polynomial system of equations encodes the structure of the solutions. This monodromy group acts on the set of solutions for a general set of parameters, that is, on the fiber of a projection from the incidence variety of parameters and solutions onto the space of parameters. When this projection is decomposable, the Galois group is imprimitive, and we show that the structure can be exploited for computational improvements. Furthermore, we ...