Equations of Parametric Surfaces via Syzygies

In the thesis we present a new method for parametrizing algebraic varieties over the field of characteristic zero. The problem of parametrizing is reduced to a problem of finding an isomorphism of algebras. We introduce the Lie algebra of a variety as a Lie algebra related to its group of automorphisms. Constructing an isomorphism of this one and some classical Lie algebra (for example the algebra of matrices of the zero trace) then leads to parametrizing the variety. The p...

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...

The problem of finding all minimal surfaces presented in parametric form as polynomials of certain degree is discussed by many authors. It is known that the classical Enneper surface is (up to position in space and homothety) the only polynomial minimal surface of degree 3 in isothermal parameters. In higher degrees the problem is quite more complicated. Here we find a general form for the functions that generate a polynomial minimal surface of arbitrary degree via the Weiers...

It is well known that an irreducible algebraic curve is rational (i.e. parametric) if and only if its genus is zero. In this paper, given a tolerance $\epsilon>0$ and an $\epsilon$-irreducible algebraic affine plane curve $\mathcal C$ of proper degree $d$, we introduce the notion of $\epsilon$-rationality, and we provide an algorithm to parametrize approximately affine $\epsilon$-rational plane curves, without exact singularities at infinity, by means of linear systems of $(d...

In this revised version, we add some expository material and references and make some minor corrections.

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 ...

Let $X$ be a closed subscheme of codimension $e$ in a projective space. One says that $X$ satisfies property ${\bf N}_{d,p}$, if the $i$-th syzygies of the homogeneous coordinate ring are generated by elements of degree $<d+i$ for $0\le i\le p$. The geometric and algebraic properties of smooth projective varieties satisfying property ${\bf N}_{2,e}$ are well understood, and the complete classification of these varieties is a classical result. The aim of this paper is to study...

The purpose of this paper is to present simple and fast methods for computing control points for polynomial curves and polynomial surfaces given explicitly in terms of polynomials (written as sums of monomials). We give recurrence formulae w.r.t. arbitrary affine frames. As a corollary, it is amusing that we can also give closed-form expressions in the case of the frame (r, s) for curves, and the frame ((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1) for surfaces. Our methods have the same l...

We classify real families of minimal degree rational curves that cover an embedded rational surface. A corollary is that if the projective closure of a smooth surface is not biregular isomorphic to the projective closure of the unit-sphere, then the set of minimal degree rational curves that cover the surface is either empty or of dimension at most two. Moreover, if these curves are of minimal degree over the real numbers, but not over the complex numbers, then almost all the...

The content of this preprint together with additional material appears now in 0706.2154.