Elimination Theory in Codimension Two

We describe a class of toric varieties in the $N$-dimensional affine space which are minimally defined by no less than $N-2$ binomial equations.

These notes survey some basic results in toric varieties over a field with examples and applications. A computer algebra package (written by the second author) is described which deals with both affine and projective toric varieties in any number of dimensions (written in both the software packages MAGMA and GAP). Among other things, the package implements a desingularization procedure for affine toric varieties, constructs some error-correcting codes associated with toric ...

This article is based on a series of lectures on toric varieties given at RIMS, Kyoto. We start by introducing toric varieties, their basic properties and later pass to more advanced topics relating mostly to combinatorics.

We give explicit formulas for the dimensions and the degrees of $A$-discriminant varieties introduced by Gelfand-Kapranov-Zelevinsky. Our formulas can be applied also to the case where the $A$-discriminant varieties are higher-codimensional and their degrees are described by the geometry of the configurations $A$. Moreover combinatorial formulas for the Euler obstructions of general (not necessarily normal) toric varieties will be also given.

We describe classes of toric varieties of codimension 2 which are either minimally defined by 3 binomial equations over any algebraically closed field, or are set-theoretic complete intersections in exactly one positive characteristic.

This article will appear in the proceedings of the AMS Summer Institute in Algebraic Geometry at Santa Cruz, July 1995. The topic is toric ideals, by which I mean the defining ideals of subvarieties of affine or projective space which are parametrized by monomials. Numerous open problems are given.

We study the subvariety of singular sections, the discriminant, of a base point free linear system $|L|$ on a smooth toric variety $X$. On one hand we describe pairs $(X,L)$ for which the discriminant is of low dimension. Precisely, we collect some bounds on this dimension and classify those pairs whose dimension differs the bound less than or equal to two. On the other hand we study the degree of the discriminant for some relevant families on polarized toric varieties, descr...

We present an explicit formula for computing toric residues as a quotient of two determinants, a la Macaulay, where the numerator is a minor of the denominator. We also give an irreducible representation of toric residues by extending the theory of subresultants to monomials of critical degree in the homogeneous coordinate ring of the corresponding toric variety.

We define the toric Newton spectrum of a polynomial and we give some applications in singularity theory, combinatorics and mirror symmetry.

Resultants and Gr\"obner bases are crucial tools in studying polynomial elimination theory. We investigate relations between the variety of the resultant of two polynomials and the variety of the ideal they generate. Then we focus on the bivariate case, in which the elimination ideal is principal. We study - by means of elementary tools - the difference between the multiplicity of the factors of the generator of the elimination ideal and the multiplicity of the factors of the...