Engineered complete intersections: slightly degenerate Bernstein--Kouchnirenko--Khovanskii

We give an elementary introduction to some recent polyhedral techniques for understanding and solving systems of multivariate polynomial equations. We provide numerous concrete examples and illustrations, and assume no background in algebraic geometry or convex geometry. Highlights include the following: (1) A completely self-contained proof of an extension of Bernstein's Theorem. Our extension relates volumes of polytopes with the number of connected components of the comp...

Numerical algebraic geometry provides a number of efficient tools for approximating the solutions of polynomial systems. One such tool is the parameter homotopy, which can be an extremely efficient method to solve numerous polynomial systems that differ only in coefficients, not monomials. This technique is frequently used for solving a parameterized family of polynomial systems at multiple parameter values. Parameter homotopies have recently been useful in several areas of a...

Let G be a complex reductive algebraic group. We study complete intersections in a spherical homogeneous space G/H defined by a generic collection of sections from G-invariant linear systems. Whenever nonempty, all such complete intersections are smooth varieties. We compute their arithmetic genus as well as some of their h^{p,0} numbers. The answers are given in terms of the moment polytopes and Newton-Okounkov polytopes associated to G-invariant linear systems. We also give...

A complete intersection $f_1=\cdots=f_k=0$ is sch\"on, if $f_1=\cdots=f_j=0$ defines a sch\"on subvariety of an algebraic torus for every $j\leqslant k$. This class includes nondegenerate complete intersections, critical loci of their coordinate projections, other simplest Thom--Boardman and multiple point strata of such projections, generalized Calabi--Yau complete intersections, equaltions of polynomial optimization, hyperplane arrangement complements, and many other intere...

We study the problem of counting the total number of affine solutions of a system of n binomials in n variables over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. We show that we may decide in polynomial time if that number is finite. We give a combinatorial formula for computing the total number of affine solutions (with or without multiplicity) from which we deduce that this counting problem is #P-complete. We discuss special cases in which this formula may be compu...

In this paper we give conditions on a homogeneous polynomial for which the associated graded Artin algebra is a complete intersection.

Given any polynomial system with fixed monomial term structure, we give explicit formulae for the generic number of roots with specified coordinate vanishing restrictions. For the case of affine space minus an arbitrary union of coordinate hyperplanes, these formulae are also the tightest possible upper bounds on the number of isolated roots. We also characterize, in terms of sparse resultants, precisely when these upper bounds are attained. Finally, we reformulate and extend...

In this paper we study a broad class of polynomial optimization problems whose constraints and objective functions exhibit sparsity patterns. We give two characterizations of the number of critical points to these problems, one as a mixed volume and one as an intersection product on a toric variety. As a corollary, we obtain a convex geometric interpretation of polar degrees, a classical invariant of algebraic varieties as well as Euclidean distance degrees. Furthermore, we p...

This paper deals with properties of the algebraic variety defined as the set of zeros of a "deficient" sequence of multivariate polynomials. We consider two types of varieties: ideal-theoretic complete intersections and absolutely irreducible varieties. For these types, we establish improved bounds on the dimension of the set of deficient systems of each type over an arbitrary field. On the other hand, we establish improved upper bounds on the number of systems of each type o...

In this survey I summarize the constructions of toric degenerations obtained from valuations and Gr\"obner theory and describe in which sense they are equivalent. I show how adapted bases can be used to generalize the classical Newton polytope to what is called a $\mathbb B$-Newton polytope. The $\mathbb B$-Newton polytope determines the Newton--Okounkov polytopes of all Khovanskii-finite valuations sharing the adapted standard monomial basis $\mathbb B$.