arXiv subjects

Grigoriy Blekherman

Publications and source records attributed to Grigoriy Blekherman.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Symmetric Hyperbolic Polynomials

Hyperbolic polynomials have been of recent interest due to applications in a wide variety of fields. We seek to better understand these polynomials in the case when they are symmetric, i.e. invariant under all permutations of variables. We give a complete characterization of the set of symmetric hyperbolic polynomials of degree 3, and a large class of symmetric hyperbolic polynomials of degree 4. For a class of polynomials, which we call hook-shaped, we relate symmetric hyperbolic polynomials to a class of linear maps of univariate polynomials preserving hyperbolicity, and give evidence toward a beautiful characterization of all such hook-shaped symmetric hyperbolic polynomials. We show that hyperbolicity cones of a class of symmetric hyperbolic polynomials, including all symmetric hyperbolic cubics, are spectrahedral. Finally, we connect testing hyperbolicity of a symmetric polynomial to the degree principle for symmetric nonnegative polynomials.

math.AG↗

arXiv2023

Ubiquity of power sums in graph profiles

Graph density profiles are fundamental objects in extremal combinatorics. Very few profiles are fully known, and all are two-dimensional. We show that even in high dimensions ratios of graph densities and numbers often form the power-sum profile (the limit of the image of the power-sum map) studied recently by Acevedo, Blekherman, Debus and Riener. Our choice of graphs is motivated by recent work by Blekherman, Raymond and Wei on undecidability of polynomial inequalities in graph densities. While the ratios do not determine the complete density profile, they contain high-dimensional information. For instance, to reconstruct the density profile of $4k$-cycles from our results, one needs to solve only one-parameter extremal problems, for any number of $4k$-cycles.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Aggregations of quadratic inequalities and hidden hyperplane convexity

We study properties of the convex hull of a set $S$ described by quadratic inequalities. A simple way of generating inequalities valid on $S$ is to take a nonnegative linear combinations of the defining inequalities of $S$. We call such inequalities aggregations. Special aggregations naturally contain the convex hull of $S$, and we give sufficient conditions for such aggregations to define the convex hull. We introduce the notion of hidden hyperplane convexity (HHC), which is related to the classical notion of hidden convexity of quadratic maps. We show that if the quadratic map associated with $S$ satisfies HHC, then the convex hull of $S$ is defined by special aggregations. To the best of our knowledge, this result generalizes all known results regarding aggregations defining convex hulls. Using this sufficient condition, we are able to recognize previously unknown classes of sets where aggregations lead to convex hull. We show that the condition known as positive definite linear combination together with hidden hyerplane convexity is a sufficient condition for finitely many aggregations to define the convex hull. All the above results are for sets defined using open quadratic inequalities. For closed quadratic inequalities, we prove a new result regarding aggregations giving the convex hull, without topological assumptions on $S$.

math.OC↗

arXiv2023

Multi-legged matter transport: a framework for locomotion on noisy landscapes

While the transport of matter by wheeled vehicles or legged robots can be guaranteed in engineered landscapes like roads or rails, locomotion prediction in complex environments like collapsed buildings or crop fields remains challenging. Inspired by principles of information transmission which allow signals to be reliably transmitted over noisy channels, we develop a ``matter transport" framework demonstrating that non-inertial locomotion can be provably generated over ``noisy" rugose landscapes (heterogeneities on the scale of locomotor dimensions). Experiments confirm that sufficient spatial redundancy in the form of serially-connected legged robots leads to reliable transport on such terrain without requiring sensing and control. Further analogies from communication theory coupled to advances in gaits (coding) and sensor-based feedback control (error detection/correction) can lead to agile locomotion in complex terradynamic regimes.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2023

Threshold Graphs Maximize Homomorphism Densities

Given a fixed graph $H$ and a constant $c \in [0,1]$, we can ask what graphs $G$ with edge density $c$ asymptotically maximize the homomorphism density of $H$ in $G$. For all $H$ for which this problem has been solved, the maximum is always asymptotically attained on one of two kinds of graphs: the quasi-star or the quasi-clique. We show that for any $H$ the maximizing $G$ is asymptotically a threshold graph, while the quasi-clique and the quasi-star are the simplest threshold graphs, having only two parts. This result gives us a unified framework to derive a number of results on graph homomorphism maximization, some of which were also found quite recently and independently using several different approaches. We show that there exist graphs $H$ and densities $c$ such that the optimizing graph $G$ is neither the quasi-star nor the quasi-clique, reproving a result of Day and Sarkar. We also show that for $c$ large enough all graphs $H$ maximize on the quasi-clique, which was also recently proven by Gerbner et al., and for any $c \in [0,1]$ the density of $K_{1,2}$ is always maximized on either the quasi-star or the quasi-clique, which was originally shown by Ahlswede and Katona. Finally, we extend our results to uniform hypergraphs.

math.CO↗

arXiv2023

Power mean inequalities and sums of squares

For fixed degree and increasing number of variables the dimension of the vector space of $n$-variate real symmetric homogeneous polynomials (forms) of degree $d$ stabilizes. We study the limits of the cones of symmetric nonnegative polynomials and symmetric sums of squares, when expressed in power-mean or monomial-mean basis. These limits correspond to forms with stable expression in power-mean (or monomial-mean) polynomials that are globally nonnegative (resp. sums of squares) regardless of the number of variables. We introduce partial symmetry reduction to describe the limit cone of symmetric sums of squares, and reprove a result of arXiv:1205.3102v4 that limits of symmetric nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares agree in degree $4$. We use tropicalization of the dual cones, which was first in the context of comparing nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares in arXiv:2203.06291, to show differences between cones of symmetric polynomials and sums of squares starting in degree 6, which disproves a conjecture of arXiv:1205.3102v4. For even symmetric nonnegative forms and sums of squares we show that the cones agree for degree at most 8, and are different starting with degree 10. We also find, via tropicalization, explicit examples of symmetric forms that are nonnegative but not sums of squares in the limit.

math.AG↗

arXiv2023

Gait design for limbless obstacle aided locomotion using geometric mechanics

Limbless robots have the potential to maneuver through cluttered environments that conventional robots cannot traverse. As illustrated in their biological counterparts such as snakes and nematodes, limbless locomotors can benefit from interactions with obstacles, yet such obstacle-aided locomotion (OAL) requires properly coordinated high-level self-deformation patterns (gait templates) as well as low-level body adaptation to environments. Most prior work on OAL utilized stereotyped traveling-wave gait templates and relied on local body deformations (e.g., passive body mechanics or decentralized controller parameter adaptation based on force feedback) for obstacle navigation, while gait template design for OAL remains less studied. In this paper, we explore novel gait templates for OAL based on tools derived from geometric mechanics (GM), which thus far has been limited to homogeneous environments. Here, we expand the scope of GM to obstacle-rich environments. Specifically, we establish a model that maps the presence of an obstacle to directional constraints in optimization. In doing so, we identify novel gait templates suitable for sparsely and densely distributed obstacle-rich environments respectively. Open-loop robophysical experiments verify the effectiveness of our identified OAL gaits in obstacle-rich environments. We posit that when such OAL gait templates are augmented with appropriate sensing and feedback controls, limbless locomotors will gain robust function in obstacle rich environments.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2022

Undecidability of polynomial inequalities in weighted graph homomorphism densities

Many problems and conjectures in extremal combinatorics concern polynomial inequalities between homomorphism densities of graphs where we allow edges to have real weights. Using the theory of graph limits, we can equivalently evaluate polynomial expressions in homomorphism densities on kernels $W$, i.e., symmetric, bounded, and measurable functions $W$ from $[0,1]^2 \to \mathbb{R}$. In 2011, Hatami and Norin proved a fundamental result that it is undecidable to determine the validity of polynomial inequalities in homomorphism densities for graphons (i.e., the case where the range of $W$ is $[0,1]$, which corresponds to unweighted graphs, or equivalently, to graphs with edge weights between $0$ and $1$). The corresponding problem for more general sets of kernels, e.g., for all kernels or for kernels with range $[-1,1]$, remains open. For any $a > 0$, we show undecidability of polynomial inequalities for any set of kernels which contains all kernels with range $\{0,a\}$. This result also answers a question raised by Lovász about finding computationally effective certificates for the validity of homomorphism density inequalities in kernels.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

Weak and Strong Extremal Biquadratics

We study quasiconvex quadratic forms on $n \times m$ matrices which correspond to nonnegative biquadratic forms in $(n,m)$ variables. We disprove a conjecture stated by Harutyunyan--Milton (Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 70(11), 2017) as well as Harutyunyan--Hovsepyan (Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 244, 2022) that extremality in the cone of quasiconvex quadratic forms on $3\times 3$ matrices can follow only from the extremality of the determinant of its acoustic tensor, using previous work by Buckley--Šivic (Linear Algebra Appl. 598, 2020). Our main result is to establish a conjecture of Harutyunyan--Milton (Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 70(11), 2017) that weak extremal quasiconvex quadratics on $3 \times 3$ matrices are strong extremal. Our main technical ingredient is a generalization of the work of Kunert--Scheiderer on extreme nonnegative ternary sextics (Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 370(6), 2018). Specifically, we show that a nonnegative ternary sextic, which is not a square, is extremal if and only if its variety (over the complex numbers) is a rational curve and all its singularities are real.

math.AG↗

arXiv2022

Tropicalization of Graph Profiles

A graph profile records all possible densities of a fixed finite set of graphs. Profiles can be extremely complicated; for instance the full profile of any triple of connected graphs is not known, and little is known about hypergraph profiles. We introduce the tropicalization of graph and hypergraph profiles. Tropicalization is a well-studied operation in algebraic geometry, which replaces a variety (the set of real or complex solutions to a finite set of algebraic equations) with its "combinatorial shadow". We prove that the tropicalization of a graph profile is a closed convex cone, which still captures interesting combinatorial information. We explicitly compute these tropicalizations for arbitrary sets of complete and star hypergraphs. We show they are rational polyhedral cones even though the corresponding profiles are not even known to be semialgebraic in some of these cases. We then use tropicalization to prove strong restrictions on the power of the sums of squares method, equivalently Cauchy-Schwarz calculus, to test (which is weaker than certification) the validity of graph density inequalities. In particular, we show that sums of squares cannot test simple binomial graph density inequalities, or even their approximations. Small concrete examples of such inequalities are presented, and include the famous Blakley-Roy inequalities for paths of odd length. As a consequence, these simple inequalities cannot be written as a rational sum of squares of graph densities.

math.CO↗

arXiv2022

A Path Forward: Tropicalization in Extremal Combinatorics

Many important problems in extremal combinatorics can be be stated as proving a pure binomial inequality in graph homomorphism numbers, i.e., proving that hom$(H_1,G)^{a_1}\cdots$hom$(H_k,G)^{a_k}\geq$hom$(H_{k+1},G)^{a_{k+1}}\cdots$hom$(H_m,G)^{a_m}$ holds for some fixed graphs $H_1,\dots,H_m$ and all graphs $G$. One prominent example is Sidorenko's conjecture. For a fixed collection of graphs $\mathcal{U}=\{H_1,\dots,H_m\}$, the exponent vectors of valid pure binomial inequalities in graphs of $\mathcal{U}$ form a convex cone. We compute this cone for several families of graphs including complete graphs, even cycles, stars and paths; the latter is the most interesting and intricate case that we compute. In all of these cases, we observe a tantalizing polyhedrality phenomenon: the cone of valid pure binomial inequalities is actually rational polyhedral, and therefore all valid pure binomial inequalities can be generated from the finite collection of exponent vectors of the extreme rays. Using the work of Kopparty and Rossman, we show that the cone of valid inequalities is indeed rational polyhedral when all graphs $H_i$ are series-parallel and chordal, and we conjecture that polyhedrality holds for any finite collection $\mathcal{U}$. We demonstrate that the polyhedrality phenomenon also occurs in matroids and simplicial complexes. Our description of the inequalities for paths involves a generalization of the Erdős-Simonovits conjecture recently proved in its original form by Sağlam and a new family of inequalities not observed previously. We also solve an open problem of Kopparty and Rossman on the homomorphism domination exponent of paths. One of our main tools is tropicalization, a well-known technique in complex algebraic geometry. We prove several results about tropicalizations which may be of independent interest.

math.CO↗

arXiv2021

Linear Principal Minor Polynomials: Hyperbolic Determinantal Inequalities and Spectral Containment

A linear principal minor polynomial or lpm polynomial is a linear combination of principal minors of a symmetric matrix. By restricting to the diagonal, lpm polynomials are in bijection to multiaffine polynomials. We show that this establishes a one-to-one correspondence between homogeneous multiaffine stable polynomials and PSD-stable lpm polynomials. This yields new construction techniques for hyperbolic polynomials and allows us to generalize the well-known Fisher--Hadamard and Koteljanskii inequalities from determinants to PSD-stable lpm polynomials. We investigate the relationship between the associated hyperbolicity cones and conjecture a relationship between the eigenvalues of a symmetric matrix and the values of certain lpm polynomials evaluated at that matrix. We refer to this relationship as spectral containment.

math.AG↗

arXiv2021

Sums of squares, Hankel index, and almost real rank

The Hankel index of a real variety $X$ is an invariant that quantifies the difference between nonnegative quadrics and sums of squares on $X$. In [5], the authors proved an intriguing bound on the Hankel index in terms of the Green-Lazarsfeld index, which measures the "linearity" of the minimal free resolution of the ideal of $X$. In all previously known cases this bound was tight. We provide the first class of examples where the bound is not tight; in fact the difference between Hankel index and Green-Lazarsfeld index can be arbitrarily large. Our examples are outer projections of rational normal curves, where we identify the center of projection with a binary form $F$. The Green-Lazarsfeld index of the projected curve is given by the complex Waring border rank of $F$ [15]. We show that the Hankel index is given by the "almost real" rank of $F$, which is a new notion that comes from decomposing $F$ as a sum of powers of almost real forms. We determine the range of possible and typical almost real ranks for binary forms.

math.AG↗

arXiv2021

Hyperbolic Relaxation of $k$-Locally Positive Semidefinite Matrices

A successful computational approach for solving large-scale positive semidefinite (PSD) programs is to enforce PSD-ness on only a collection of submatrices. For our study, we let $\mathcal{S}^{n,k}$ be the convex cone of $n\times n$ symmetric matrices where all $k\times k$ principal submatrices are PSD. We call a matrix in this $k$-\emph{locally PSD}. In order to compare $S^{n,k}$ to the of PSD matrices, we study eigenvalues of $k$-{locally PSD} matrices. The key insight in this paper is that there is a convex cone $H(e_k^n)$ so that if $X \in \mathcal{S}^{n,k}$, then the vector of eigenvalues of $X$ is contained in $H(e_k^n)$. The cone $H(e_k^n)$ is the hyperbolicity cone of the elementary symmetric polynomial $e^k_n$ (where $e_k^n(x) = \sum_{S \subseteq [n] : |S| = k} \prod_{i \in S} x_i$) with respect to the all ones vector. Using this insight, we are able to improve previously known upper bounds on the Frobenius distance between matrices in $\mathcal{S}^{n,k}$ and PSD matrices. We also study the quality of the convex relaxation $H(e^n_k)$. We first show that this relaxation is tight for the case of $k = n -1$, that is, for every vector in $H(e^n_{n -1})$ there exists a matrix in $\mathcal{S}^{n, n -1}$ whose eigenvalues are equal to the components of the vector. We then prove a structure theorem on nonsingular matrices in $\mathcal{S}^{n,k}$ all of whose $k\times k$ principal minors are zero, which we believe is of independent interest. %We then prove a structure theorem that precisely characterizes the non-singular matrices in $\mathcal{S}^{n,k}$ whose vector of eigenvalues belongs to the boundary of $H(e^n_k)$. This result shows shows that for $1< k < n -1$ "large parts" of the boundary of $H(e_k^n)$ do not intersect with the eigenvalues of matrices in $\mathcal{S}^{n,k}$.

math.OC↗

arXiv2021

Sums of Squares and Sparse Semidefinite Programming

We consider two seemingly unrelated questions: the relationship between nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares on real varieties, and sparse semidefinite programming. This connection is natural when a real variety $X$ is defined by a quadratic square-free monomial ideal. In this case nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares on $X$ are also natural objects in positive semidefinite matrix completion. Nonnegative quadratic forms over $X$ naturally correspond to partially specified matrices where all of the fully specified square blocks are PSD, and sums of squares quadratic forms naturally correspond to partially specified matrices which can be completed to a PSD matrix. We show quantitative results on approximation of nonnegative polynomials by sums of squares, which leads to applications in sparse semidefinite programming.

math.AG↗

arXiv2021

Lectures on Nonnegative Polynomials and Sums of Squares

These lecture notes provide an informal introduction to the theory of nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares. We highlight the history and some recent developments, especially the new connections with classical (complex) algebraic geometry and commutative algebra. We briefly discuss the connection to semidefinite programming and applications. We expect the reader to be familiar with algebra and fundamentals of algebraic geometry, on the level of a graduate course, and know basic facts about positive semidefinite matrices.

math.AG↗

arXiv2021

Sums of Squares: A Real Projective Story

The relationship between nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares is one of the central questions in real algebraic geometry. A modern approach is to look at nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares on a real variety. We survey the rich history of this area and focus on recent developments highlighting unexpected links to complex algebraic geometry and commutative algebra.

math.AG↗

arXiv2020

Quantum Entanglement, Symmetric Nonnegative Quadratic Polynomials and Moment Problems

Quantum states are represented by positive semidefinite Hermitian operators with unit trace, known as density matrices. An important subset of quantum states is that of separable states, the complement of which is the subset of \textit{entangled} states. We show that the problem of deciding whether a quantum state is entangled can be seen as a moment problem in real analysis. Only a small number of such moments are accessible experimentally, and so in practice the question of quantum entanglement of a many-body system can be reduced to a truncated moment problem. By considering quantum entanglement of $n$ identical atoms we arrive at the truncated moment problem defined for symmetric measures over a product of $n$ copies of unit balls in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We work with moments up to degree $2$. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for belonging to the moment cone, which can be expressed via a linear matrix inequality of size at most $2d+2$, which is independent of $n$. The linear matrix inequalities can be converted into a set of explicit semialgebraic inequalities giving necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in the moment cone, and show that the two conditions approach each other in the limit of large $n$. The inequalities are derived via considering the dual cone of nonnegative polynomials, and its sum-of-squares relaxation. We show that the sum-of-squares relaxation of the dual cone is asymptotically exact, and using symmetry reduction techniques (J. Pure Appl. Algebra 192, no. 1-3, 95, arXiv:1205.3102), it can be written as a small linear matrix inequality of size at most $2d+2$, which is independent of $n$. For the cone of symmetric nonnegative polynomials with the relevant support we also prove an analogue of the half-degree principle for globally nonnegative symmetric polynomials (J. Math. Anal. Appl. 284, no. 1, 174, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 216, no. 4, 850).

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