arXiv subjects

Grigoriy Blekherman

Publications and source records attributed to Grigoriy Blekherman.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Typical ranks in symmetric matrix completion

We study the problem of low-rank matrix completion for symmetric matrices. The minimum rank of a completion of a generic partially specified symmetric matrix depends only on the location of the specified entries, and not their values, if complex entries are allowed. When the entries are required to be real, this is no longer the case and the possible minimum ranks are called typical ranks. We give a combinatorial description of the patterns of specified entires of $n\times n$ symmetric matrices that have $n$ as a typical rank. Moreover, we describe exactly when such a generic partial matrix is minimally completable to rank $n$. We also characterize the typical ranks for patterns of entries with low maximal typical rank.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Proof of the Erdős-Simonovits conjecture on walks

Let $G^n$ be a graph on $n$ vertices and let $w_k(G^n)$ denote the number of walks of length $k$ in $G^n$ divided by $n$. Erdős and Simonovits conjectured that $w_k(G^n)^t \geq w_t(G^n)^k$ when $k\geq t$ and both $t$ and $k$ are odd. We prove this conjecture.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Bounds on Regularity of Quadratic Monomial Ideals

Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity is a measure of algebraic complexity of an ideal. Regularity of monomial ideals can be investigated combinatorially. We use a simple graph decomposition and results from structural graph theory to prove, improve and generalize many of the known bounds on regularity of quadratic square-free monomial ideals.

math.AC↗

arXiv2020

Sums of Squares and Quadratic Persistence on Real Projective Varieties

We bound the Pythagoras number of a real projective subvariety: the smallest positive integer $r$ such that every sum of squares of linear forms in its homogeneous coordinate ring is a sum of at most $r$ squares. Enhancing existing methods, we exhibit three distinct upper bounds involving known invariants. In contrast, our lower bound depends on a new invariant of a projective subvariety called the quadratic persistence. Defined by projecting away from points, this numerical invariant is closely related to the linear syzygies of the variety. In addition, we classify the projective subvarieties of maximal and almost-maximal quadratic persistence, and determine their Pythagoras numbers.

math.AG↗

arXiv2020

Symmetric nonnegative forms and sums of squares

We study symmetric nonnegative forms and their relationship with symmetric sums of squares. For a fixed number of variables $n$ and degree $2d$, symmetric nonnegative forms and symmetric sums of squares form closed, convex cones in the vector space of $n$-variate symmetric forms of degree $2d$. Using representation theory of the symmetric group we characterize both cones in a uniform way. Further, we investigate the asymptotic behavior when the degree $2d$ is fixed and the number of variables $n$ grows. Here, we show that, in sharp contrast to the general case, the difference between symmetric nonnegative forms and sums of squares does not grow arbitrarily large for any fixed degree $2d$. We consider the case of symmetric quartic forms in more detail and give a complete characterization of quartic symmetric sums of squares. Furthermore, we show that in degree $4$ the cones of nonnegative symmetric forms and symmetric sums of squares approach the same limit, thus these two cones asymptotically become closer as the number of variables grows. We conjecture that this is true in arbitrary degree $2d$.

math.OC↗

arXiv2020

Sparse PSD approximation of the PSD cone

While semidefinite programming (SDP) problems are polynomially solvable in theory, it is often difficult to solve large SDP instances in practice. One technique to address this issue is to relax the global positive-semidefiniteness (PSD) constraint and only enforce PSD-ness on smaller $k\times k$ principal submatrices --- we call this the sparse SDP relaxation. Surprisingly, it has been observed empirically that in some cases this approach appears to produce bounds that are close to the optimal objective function value of the original SDP. In this paper, we formally attempt to compare the strength of the sparse SDP relaxation vis-à-vis the original SDP from a theoretical perspective. In order to simplify the question, we arrive at a data independent version of it, where we compare the sizes of SDP cone and the $k$-PSD closure, which is the cone of matrices where PSD-ness is enforced on all $k\times k$ principal submatrices. In particular, we investigate the question of how far a matrix of unit Frobenius norm in the $k$-PSD closure can be from the SDP cone. We provide two incomparable upper bounds on this farthest distance as a function of $k$ and $n$. We also provide matching lower bounds, which show that the upper bounds are tight within a constant in different regimes of $k$ and $n$. Other than linear algebra techniques, we extensively use probabilistic methods to arrive at these bounds. One of the lower bounds is obtained by observing a connection between matrices in the $k$-PSD closure and matrices satisfying the restricted isometry property (RIP).

math.OC↗

arXiv2019

Typical and Generic Ranks in Matrix Completion

We consider the problem of exact low-rank matrix completion from a geometric viewpoint: given a partially filled matrix M, we keep the positions of specified and unspecified entries fixed, and study how the minimal completion rank depends on the values of the known entries. If the entries of the matrix are complex numbers, then for a fixed pattern of locations of specified and unspecified entries there is a unique completion rank which occurs with positive probability. We call this rank the generic completion rank. Over the real numbers there can be multiple ranks that occur with positive probability; we call them typical completion ranks. We introduce these notions formally, and provide a number of inequalities and exact results on typical and generic ranks for different families of patterns of known and unknown entries.

math.ST↗

arXiv2018

Simple Graph Density Inequalities with no Sum of Squares Proofs

Establishing inequalities among graph densities is a central pursuit in extremal combinatorics. A standard tool to certify the nonnegativity of a graph density expression is to write it as a sum of squares. In this paper, we identify a simple condition under which a graph density expression cannot be a sum of squares. Using this result, we prove that the Blakley-Roy inequality does not have a sum of squares certificate when the path length is odd. We also show that the same Blakley-Roy inequalities cannot be certified by sums of squares using a multiplier of the form one plus a sum of squares. These results answer two questions raised by Lovász. Our main tool is used again to show that the smallest open case of Sidorenko's conjectured inequality cannot be certified by a sum of squares. Finally, we show that our setup is equivalent to existing frameworks by Razborov and Lovász-Szegedy, and thus our results hold in these settings too.

math.CO↗

arXiv2018

Sharp Degree Bounds for Sum-of-Squares Certificates on Projective Curves

Given a real projective curve with homogeneous coordinate ring R and a nonnegative homogeneous element f in R, we bound the degree of a nonzero homogeneous sum-of-squares g in R such that the product fg is again a sum of squares. Better yet, our degree bounds only depend on geometric invariants of the curve and we show that there exist smooth curves and nonnegative elements for which our bounds are sharp. We deduce the existence of a multiplier g from a new Bertini Theorem in convex algebraic geometry and prove sharpness by deforming rational Harnack curves on toric surfaces. Our techniques also yield similar bounds for multipliers on surfaces of minimal degree, generalizing Hilbert's work on ternary forms.

math.AG↗

arXiv2018

Generalized eigenvalue methods for Gaussian quadrature rules

A quadrature rule of a measure $μ$ on the real line represents a convex combination of finitely many evaluations at points, called nodes, that agrees with integration against $μ$ for all polynomials up to some fixed degree. In this paper, we present a bivariate polynomial whose roots parametrize the nodes of minimal quadrature rules for measures on the real line. We give two symmetric determinantal formulas for this polynomial, which translate the problem of finding the nodes to solving a generalized eigenvalue problem.

math.NA↗

arXiv2018

The core variety and representing measures in the truncated moment problem

The classical Truncated Moment problem asks for necessary and sufficient conditions so that a linear functional $L$ on $\mathcal{P}_{d}$, the vector space of real $n$-variable polynomials of degree at most $d$, can be written as integration with respect to a positive Borel measure $μ$ on $\mathbb{R}^n$. We work in a more general setting, where $L$ is a linear functional acting on a finite dimensional vector space $V$ of Borel-measurable functions defined on a $T_{1}$ topological space $S$. Using an iterative geometric construction, we associate to $L$ a subset of $S$ called the \textit{core variety}, $\mathcal{CV}(L)$. Our main result is that $L$ has a representing measure $μ$ if and only if $\mathcal{CV}(L)$ is nonempty. In this case, $L$ has a finitely atomic representing measure, and the union of the supports of such measures is precisely $\mathcal{CV}(L)$. We also use the core variety to describe the facial decomposition of the cone of functionals in the dual space $V^{*}$ having representing measures. We prove a generalization of the Truncated Riesz-Haviland Theorem of Curto-Fialkow, which permits us to solve a generalized Truncated Moment Problem in terms of positive extensions of $L$. These results are adapted to derive a Riesz-Haviland Theorem for a generalized Full Moment Problem and to obtain a core variety theorem for the latter problem.

math.FA↗

arXiv2017

Maximum Likelihood Threshold and Generic Completion Rank of Graphs

The minimum number of observations such that the maximum likelihood estimator in a Gaussian graphical model exists with probability one is called the maximum likelihood threshold of the underlying graph G. The natural algebraic relaxation is the generic completion rank introduced by Uhler. We show that the maximum likelihood threshold and the generic completion rank behave in the same way under clique sums, which gives us large families of graphs on which these invariants coincide. On the other hand we determine both invariants for complete bipartite graphs $K_{m,n}$ and show that for some choices of m and n the two parameters may be quite far apart. In particular, this gives the first examples of graphs on which the maximum likelihood threshold and the generic completion rank do not agree.

math.CO↗

arXiv2017

Low-Rank Sum-of-Squares Representations on Varieties of Minimal Degree

A celebrated result by Hilbert says that every real nonnegative ternary quartic is a sum of three squares. We show more generally that every nonnegative quadratic form on a real projective variety $X$ of minimal degree is a sum of $\dim(X)+1$ squares of linear forms. This strengthens one direction of a recent result due to Blekherman, Smith, and Velasco. Our upper bound is the best possible, and it implies the existence of low-rank factorizations of positive semidefinite bivariate matrix polynomials and representations of biforms as sums of few squares. We determine the number of equivalence classes of sum-of-squares representations of general quadratic forms on surfaces of minimal degree, generalizing the count for ternary quartics by Powers, Reznick, Scheiderer, and Sottile.

math.AG↗

arXiv2016

Do Sums of Squares Dream of Free Resolutions?

We associate to a real projective variety $X$ two convex cones which are fundamental in real algebraic geometry: the cone $P_X$ of quadratic forms nonnegative on $X$, and the cone $Σ_X$ of sums of squares of linear forms. The dual cone $Σ_X^\ast$ is a spectrahedron and we show that its convexity properties are closely related to homological properties of $X$. For instance, we show that all extreme rays of $Σ_X^\ast$ have rank one if and only if X has Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity two. More generally, if $Σ_X^\ast$ has an extreme ray of rank $p > 1$, then $X$ does not satisfy the property $N_{2,p}$. We show that the converse also holds in a wide variety of situations: the smallest $p$ for which property $N_{2,p}$ does not hold is equal to the smallest rank of an extreme ray of $Σ_X^\ast$ greater than one. These results allow us to generalize the work of Blekherman-Smith-Velasco on equality of nonnegative polynomials and sums of squares from irreducible varieties to reduced schemes and to classify all spectrahedral cones with only rank one extreme rays. Our results have applications to the positive semidefinite matrix completion problem and to the truncated moment problem on projective varieties.

math.AG↗

arXiv2015

On real typical ranks

We study typical ranks with respect to a real variety $X$. Examples of such are tensor rank ($X$ is the Segre variety) and symmetric tensor rank ($X$ is the Veronese variety). We show that any rank between the minimal typical rank and the maximal typical rank is also typical. We investigate typical ranks of $n$-variate symmetric tensors of order $d$, or equivalently homogeneous polynomials of degree $d$ in $n$ variables, for small values of $n$ and $d$. We show that $4$ is the unique typical rank of real ternary cubics, and quaternary cubics have typical ranks $5$ and $6$ only. For ternary quartics we show that $6$ and $7$ are typical ranks and that all typical ranks are between $6$ and $8$. For ternary quintics we show that the typical ranks are between $7$ and $13$.

math.AG↗

arXiv2015

Real Rank with Respect to Varieties

We study the real rank of points with respect to a real variety $X$. This is a generalization of various tensor ranks, where $X$ is in a specific family of real varieties like Veronese or Segre varieties. The maximal real rank can be bounded in terms of the codimension of $X$ only. We show constructively that there exist varieties $X$ for which this bound is tight. The same varieties provide examples where a previous bound of Blekherman-Teitler on the maximal $X$-rank is tight. We also give examples of varieties $X$ for which the gap between maximal complex and the maximal real rank is arbitrarily large. To facilitate our constructions we prove a conjecture of Reznick on the maximal real symmetric rank of symmetric bivariate tensors. Finally we study the geometry of the set of points of maximal real rank in the case of real plane curves.

math.AG↗

arXiv2015

Extreme Rays of the Hankel Spectrahedra for Ternary Forms

Hankel spectrahedra are the dual convex cones to the cone of sums of squares of real polynomials, and we study them from the point of view of convex algebraic geometry. We show that the Zariski closure of the union of all extreme rays of Hankel spectrahedra for ternary forms is an irreducible variety of codimension 10. It is the variety of all Hankel (or middle Catalecticant) matrices of corank at least 4. We explicitly construct a rational extreme ray of maximal rank using the Cayley-Bacharach Theorem for plane curves. We work out the rank stratification of the semi-algebraic set of extreme rays of Hankel spectrahedra in the first three nontrivial cases d = 3, 4, 5. Dually, we get a characterisation of the algebraic boundary of the cone of sums of squares via projective duality theory, extending previous work of Blekherman, Hauenstein, Ottem, Ranestad, and Sturmfels.

math.AG↗

arXiv2014

On Maximum, Typical and Generic Ranks

We show that for several notions of rank including tensor rank, Waring rank, and generalized rank with respect to a projective variety, the maximum value of rank is at most twice the generic rank. We show that over the real numbers, the maximum value of the real rank is at most twice the smallest typical rank, which is equal to the (complex) generic rank.

math.AG↗