arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Cynthia Vinzant.
We give a semidefinite programming characterization of the Crawford number. We show that the computation of the Crawford number within $\varepsilon$ precision is computable in polynomial time in the data and $|\log \varepsilon |$.
We use tropicalization to study the duals to cones of nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares on a semialgebraic set $S$. The truncated cones of moments of measures supported on the set $S$ is dual to nonnegative polynomials on $S$, while "pseudo-moments" are dual to sums of squares approximations to nonnegative polynomials. We provide explicit combinatorial descriptions of tropicalizations of the moment and pseudo-moment cones, and demonstrate their usefulness in distinguishing between nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares. We give examples that show new limitations of sums of squares approximations of nonnegative polynomials. When the semialgebraic set is defined by binomial inequalites, its moment and pseudo-moment cones are closed under Hadamard product. In this case, their tropicalizations are polyhedral cones that encode all binomial inequalities on the moment and pseudo-moment cones.
We study the tropicalization of the image of the cone of positive definite matrices under the principal minors map. It is a polyhedral subset of the set of $M$-concave functions on the discrete $n$-dimensional cube. We show it coincides with the intersection of the affine tropical flag variety with the submodular cone. In particular, any cell in the regular subdivision of the cube induced by a point in this tropicalization can be subdivided into base polytopes of realizable matroids. We use this tropicalization as a guide to discover new algebraic inequalities among the principal minors of positive semidefinite matrices of a fixed size. We also extend our results to positive semidefinite matrices via taking closures in the tropical semifield $\mathbb{R}\cup\{-\infty\}$.
In this paper we introduce valuated $Δ$-matroids, a natural generalization of two objects of study in matroid theory: valuated matroids and $Δ$-matroids. We show that these objects exhibit nice properties analogous to ordinary valuated matroids. We also show that these objects arise as the valuations of principal minors of a Hermitian matrix over a valued field, generalizing other forms of $Δ$-matroid representability.
The higher-rank numerical range is a convex compact set generalizing the classical numerical range of a square complex matrix, first appearing in the study of quantum error correction. We will discuss some of the real algebraic and convex geometry of these sets, including a generalization of Kippenhahn's theorem, and describe an algorithm to explicitly calculate the higher-rank numerical range of a given matrix.
A Lee-Yang polynomial $ p(z_{1},\ldots,z_{n}) $ is a polynomial that has no zeros in the polydisc $ \mathbb{D}^{n} $ and its inverse $ (\mathbb{C}\setminus\overline{\mathbb{D}})^{n} $. We show that any real-rooted exponential polynomial of the form $f(x) = \sum_{j=0}^s c_j e^{λ_j x}$ can be written as the restriction of a Lee-Yang polynomial to a positive line in the torus. Together with previous work by Olevskii and Ulanovskii, this implies that the Kurasov-Sarnak construction of $ \mathbb{N} $-valued Fourier quasicrystals from stable polynomials comprises every possible $ \mathbb{N} $-valued Fourier quasicrystal.
In this paper, we construct Fourier quasicrystals with unit masses in arbitrary dimensions. This generalizes a one-dimensional construction of Kurasov and Sarnak. To do this, we employ a class of complex algebraic varieties avoiding certain regions in $\mathbb{C}^n$, which generalize hypersurfaces defined by Lee-Yang polynomials. We show that these are Delone almost periodic sets that have at most finite intersection with every discrete periodic set.
Given $7 \leq k \leq 9$ points $(x_i,y_i) \in \mathbb{P}^2 \times \mathbb{P}^2$, we characterize rank deficiency of the $k \times 9$ matrix $Z_k$ with rows $x_i^\top \otimes y_i^\top$, in terms of the geometry of the point sets $\{x_i\}$ and $\{y_i\}$. This problem arises in the conditioning of certain well-known reconstruction algorithms in computer vision, but has surprising connections to classical algebraic geometry via the interplay of quadric surfaces, cubic curves and Cremona transformations. The characterization of rank deficiency of $Z_k$, when $k \leq 6$, was completed in arXiv:2301.09826.
Recent work of Kurasov and Sarnak provides a method for constructing one-dimensional Fourier quasicrystals (FQ) from the torus zero sets of a special class of multivariate polynomials called Lee-Yang polynomials. In particular, they provided a non-periodic FQ with unit coefficients and uniformly discrete support, answering an open question posed by Meyer. Their method was later shown to generate all one-dimensional Fourier quasicrystals with $\mathbb{N}$-valued coefficients ($ \mathbb{N} $-FQ). In this paper, we characterize which Lee-Yang polynomials give rise to non-periodic $ \mathbb{N} $-FQs with unit coefficients and uniformly discrete support, and show that this property is generic among Lee-Yang polynomials. We also show that the infinite sequence of gaps between consecutive atoms of any $\mathbb{N}$-FQ has a well-defined distribution, which, under mild conditions, is absolutely continuous. This generalizes previously known results for the spectra of quantum graphs to arbitrary $\mathbb{N}$-FQs. Two extreme examples are presented: first, a sequence of $\mathbb{N}$-FQs whose gap distributions converge to a Poisson distribution. Second, a sequence of random Lee-Yang polynomials that results in random $\mathbb{N}$-FQs whose empirical gap distributions converge to that of a random unitary matrix (CUE).
In this paper we explore determinantal representations of multiaffine polynomials and consequences for the image of various spaces of matrices under the principal minor map. We show that a real multiaffine polynomial has a definite Hermitian determinantal representation if and only if all of its so-called Rayleigh differences factor as Hermitian squares and use this characterization to conclude that the image of the space of Hermitian matrices under the principal minor map is cut out by the orbit of finitely many equations and inequalities under the action of $({\rm SL}_2(\mathbb{R}))^{n} \rtimes S_{n}$. We also study such representations over more general fields with quadratic extensions. Factorizations of Rayleigh differences prove an effective tool for capturing subtle behavior of the principal minor map. In contrast to the Hermitian case, we give examples to show for any field $\mathbb{F}$, there is no finite set of equations whose orbit under $({\rm SL}_2(\mathbb{F}))^{n} \rtimes S_{n}$ cuts out the image of $n\times n$ matrices over $\mathbb{F}$ under the principal minor map for every $n$.
Here we consider the image of the principal minor map of symmetric matrices over an arbitrary unique factorization domain $R$. By exploiting a connection with symmetric determinantal representations, we characterize the image of the principal minor map through the condition that certain polynomials coming from so-called Rayleigh differences are squares in the polynomial ring over $R$. In almost all cases, one can characterize the image of the principal minor map using the orbit of Cayley's hyperdeterminant under the action of $(SL_2(R))^{n} \rtimes S_{n}$. Over the complex numbers, this recovers a characterization of Oeding from 2011, and over the reals, the orbit of a single additional quadratic inequality suffices to cut out the image. Applications to other symmetric determinantal representations are also discussed.
Here we study the space of real hyperbolic plane curves that are invariant under actions of the cyclic and dihedral groups and show they have determinantal representations that certify this invariance. We show an analogue of Nuij's theorem for the set of invariant hyperbolic polynomials of a given degree. The main theorem is that every invariant hyperbolic plane curve has a determinantal representation using a block cyclic weighted shift matrix. This generalizes previous work by Lentzos and the first author, as well as by Chien and Nakazato. One consequence is that if the numerical range of a matrix is invariant under rotation, then it is the numerical range of a block cyclic weighted shift matrix.
We prove tight mixing time bounds for natural random walks on bases of matroids, determinantal distributions, and more generally distributions associated with log-concave polynomials. For a matroid of rank $k$ on a ground set of $n$ elements, or more generally distributions associated with log-concave polynomials of homogeneous degree $k$ on $n$ variables, we show that the down-up random walk, started from an arbitrary point in the support, mixes in time $O(k\log k)$. Our bound has no dependence on $n$ or the starting point, unlike the previous analyses [ALOV19,CGM19], and is tight up to constant factors. The main new ingredient is a property we call approximate exchange, a generalization of well-studied exchange properties for matroids and valuated matroids, which may be of independent interest. In particular, given function $μ: {[n] \choose k} \to \mathbb{R}_{\geq 0},$ our approximate exchange property implies that a simple local search algorithm gives a $k^{O(k)}$-approximation of $\max_{S} μ(S)$ when $μ$ is generated by a log-concave polynomial, and that greedy gives the same approximation ratio when $μ$ is strongly Rayleigh. As an application, we show how to leverage down-up random walks to approximately sample random forests or random spanning trees in a graph with $n$ edges in time $O(n\log^2 n).$ The best known result for sampling random forest was a FPAUS with high polynomial runtime recently found by \cite{ALOV19, CGM19}. For spanning tree, we improve on the almost-linear time algorithm by [Sch18]. Our analysis works on weighted graphs too, and is the first to achieve nearly-linear running time for these problems.
A variety of codimension $c$ in complex affine space is called positively hyperbolic if the imaginary part of any point in it does not lie in any positive linear subspace of dimension $c$. Positively hyperbolic hypersurfaces are defined by stable polynomials. We give a new characterization of positively hyperbolic varieties using sign variations, and show that they are equivalently defined by being hyperbolic with respect to the positive part of the Grassmannian, in the sense of Shamovich and Vinnikov. We prove that positively hyperbolic projective varieties have tropicalizations that are locally subfans of the type $A$ hyperplane arrangement defined by $x_i = x_j$, in which the maximal cones satisfy a non-crossing condition. This gives new proofs of some results of Choe--Oxley--Sokal--Wagner and Brändén on Newton polytopes and tropicalizations of stable polynomials. We settle the question of which tropical varieties can be obtained as tropicalizations of positively hyperbolic varieties in the case of tropical toric varieties, constant-coefficient tropical curves, and Bergman fans. Along the way, we also give a new characterization of positroids in terms of a non-crossing condition on their Bergman fans.
We study the univariate moment problem of piecewise-constant density functions on the interval $[0,1]$ and its consequences for an inference problem in population genetics. We show that, up to closure, any collection of $n$ moments is achieved by a step function with at most $n-1$ breakpoints and that this bound is tight. We use this to show that any point in the $n$th coalescence manifold in population genetics can be attained by a piecewise constant population history with at most $n-2$ changes. Both the moment cones and the coalescence manifold are projected spectrahedra and we describe the problem of finding a nearest point on them as a semidefinite program.
In this paper, we adapt the differential signature construction to the equivalence problem for complex plane algebraic curves under the actions of the projective group and its subgroups. Given an action of a group $G$, a signature map assigns to a plane algebraic curve another plane algebraic curve (a signature curve) in such a way that two generic curves have the same signatures if and only if they are $G$-equivalent. We prove that for any $G$-action, there exists a pair of rational differential invariants, called classifying invariants, that can be used to construct signatures. We derive a formula for the degree of a signature curve in terms of the degree of the original curve, the size of its symmetry group and some quantities depending on a choice of classifying invariants. For the full projective group, as well as for its affine, special affine and special Euclidean subgroups, we give explicit sets of rational classifying invariants and derive a formula for the degree of the signature curve of a generic curve as a quadratic function of the degree of the original curve. We show that this generic degree is the sharp upper bound.
The image of a linear space under inversion of some coordinates is an affine variety whose structure is governed by an underlying hyperplane arrangement. In this paper, we generalize work by Proudfoot and Speyer to show that circuit polynomials form a universal Groebner basis for the ideal of polynomials vanishing on this variety. The proof relies on degenerations to the Stanley-Reisner ideal of a simplicial complex determined by the underlying matroid. If the linear space is real, then the semi-inverted linear space is also an example of a hyperbolic variety, meaning that all of its intersection points with a large family of linear spaces are real.
We design an FPRAS to count the number of bases of any matroid given by an independent set oracle, and to estimate the partition function of the random cluster model of any matroid in the regime where $0<q<1$. Consequently, we can sample random spanning forests in a graph and (approximately) compute the reliability polynomial of any matroid. We also prove the thirty year old conjecture of Mihail and Vazirani that the bases exchange graph of any matroid has expansion at least 1. One of our key observations is a close connection between pure simplicial complexes and multiaffine homogeneous polynomials. Specifically, if $X$ is a pure simplicial complex with positive weights on its maximal faces, we can associate with $X$ a multiaffine homogeneous polynomial $p_{X}$ such that the eigenvalues of the localized random walks on $X$ correspond to the eigenvalues of the Hessian of derivatives of $p_{X}$.