The dimension of an amoeba
Answering a question by Nisse and Sottile, we derive a formula for the dimension of the amoeba of an irreducible algebraic variety.
math.AG↗
arXiv subjects
Jan Draisma
Publications and source records attributed to Jan Draisma.
Topological Noetherianity of polynomial functors
We prove that any finite-degree polynomial functor is topologically Noetherian. This theorem is motivated by the recent resolution of Stillman's conjecture and a recent Noetherianity proof for the space of cubics. Via work by Erman-Sam-Snowden, our theorem implies Stillman's conjecture and indeed boundedness of a wider class of invariants of ideals in polynomial rings with a fixed number of generators of prescribed degrees.
math.AC↗
Stillman's conjecture via generic initial ideals
Using recent work by Erman-Sam-Snowden, we show that finitely generated ideals in the ring of bounded-degree formal power series in infinitely many variables have finitely generated Gröbner bases relative to the graded reverse lexicographic order. We then combine this result with the first author's work on topological Noetherianity of polynomial functors to give an algorithmic proof of the following statement: ideals in polynomial rings generated by a fixed number of homogeneous polynomials of fixed degrees only have a finite number of possible generic initial ideals, independently of the number of variables that they involve and independently of the characteristic of the ground field. Our algorithm outputs not only a finite list of possible generic initial ideals, but also finite descriptions of the corresponding strata in the space of coefficients.
math.AC↗
Partial correlation hypersurfaces in Gaussian graphical models
We derive a combinatorial sufficient condition for a partial correlation hypersurface in the parameter space of a directed Gaussian graphical model to be nonsingular, and speculate on whether this condition can be used in algorithms for learning the graph. Since the condition is fulfilled in the case of a complete DAG on any number of vertices, the result implies an affirmative answer to a question raised by Lin-Uhler-Sturmfels-Bühlmann.
math.ST↗
Polynomials and tensors of bounded strength
Notions of rank abound in the literature on tensor decomposition. We prove that strength, recently introduced for homogeneous polynomials by Ananyan-Hochster in their proof of Stillman's conjecture and generalised here to other tensors, is universal among these ranks in the following sense: any non-trivial Zariski-closed condition on tensors that is functorial in the underlying vector space implies bounded strength. This generalises a theorem by Derksen-Eggermont-Snowden on cubic polynomials, as well as a theorem by Kazhdan-Ziegler which says that a polynomial all of whose directional derivatives have bounded strength must itself have bounded strength.
math.AG↗
Best rank-$k$ approximations for tensors: generalizing Eckart-Young
Given a tensor $f$ in a Euclidean tensor space, we are interested in the critical points of the distance function from $f$ to the set of tensors of rank at most $k$, which we call the critical rank-at-most-$k$ tensors for $f$. When $f$ is a matrix, the critical rank-one matrices for $f$ correspond to the singular pairs of $f$. The critical rank-one tensors for $f$ lie in a linear subspace $H_f$, the critical space of $f$. Our main result is that, for any $k$, the critical rank-at-most-$k$ tensors for a sufficiently general $f$ also lie in the critical space $H_f$. This is the part of Eckart-Young Theorem that generalizes from matrices to tensors. Moreover, we show that when the tensor format satisfies the triangle inequalities, the critical space $H_f$ is spanned by the complex critical rank-one tensors. Since $f$ itself belongs to $H_f$, we deduce that also $f$ itself is a linear combination of its critical rank-one tensors.
math.AG↗
Markov random fields and iterated toric fibre products
We prove that iterated toric fibre products from a finite collection of toric varieties are defined by binomials of uniformly bounded degree. This implies that Markov random fields built up from a finite collection of finite graphs have uniformly bounded Markov degree.
math.AC↗
A note on ED degrees of group-stable subvarieties in polar representations
In a recent paper, Drusvyatskiy, Lee, Ottaviani, and Thomas establish a "transfer principle" by means of which the Euclidean distance degree of an orthogonally-stable matrix variety can be computed from the Euclidean distance degree of its intersection with a linear subspace. We generalise this principle.
math.AG↗
Algebraic matroids and Frobenius flocks
We show that each algebraic representation of a matroid $M$ in positive characteristic determines a matroid valuation of $M$, which we have named the {\em Lindström valuation}. If this valuation is trivial, then a linear representation of $M$ in characteristic $p$ can be derived from the algebraic representation. Thus, so-called rigid matroids, which only admit trivial valuations, are algebraic in positive characteristic $p$ if and only if they are linear in characteristic $p$. To construct the Lindström valuation, we introduce new matroid representations called flocks, and show that each algebraic representation of a matroid induces flock representations.
math.CO↗
On metric graphs with prescribed gonality
We prove that in the moduli space of genus-g metric graphs the locus of graphs with gonality at most d has the classical dimension min{3g-3,2g+2d-5}. This follows from a careful parameter count to establish the upper bound and a construction of sufficiently many graphs with gonality at most d to establish the lower bound. Here, gonality is the minimal degree of a non-degenerate harmonic map to a tree that satisfies the Riemann-Hurwitz condition everywhere. Along the way, we establish a convenient combinatorial datum capturing such harmonic maps to trees.
math.CO↗
Uniform determinantal representations
The problem of expressing a specific polynomial as the determinant of a square matrix of affine-linear forms arises from algebraic geometry, optimisation, complexity theory, and scientific computing. Motivated by recent developments in this last area, we introduce the notion of a uniform determinantal representation, not of a single polynomial but rather of all polynomials in a given number of variables and of a given maximal degree. We derive a lower bound on the size of the matrix, and present a construction achieving that lower bound up to a constant factor as the number of variables is fixed and the degree grows. This construction marks an improvement upon a recent construction due to Plestenjak-Hochstenbach, and we investigate the performance of new representations in their root-finding technique for bivariate systems. Furthermore, we relate uniform determinantal representations to vector spaces of singular matrices, and we conclude with a number of future research directions.
math.AC↗
On the existence of identifiable reparametrizations for linear compartment models
The parameters of a linear compartment model are usually estimated from experimental input-output data. A problem arises when infinitely many parameter values can yield the same result; such a model is called unidentifiable. In this case, one can search for an identifiable reparametrization of the model: a map which reduces the number of parameters, such that the reduced model is identifiable. We study a specific class of models which are known to be unidentifiable. Using algebraic geometry and graph theory, we translate a criterion given by Meshkat and Sullivant for the existence of an identifiable scaling reparametrization to a new criterion based on the rank of a weighted adjacency matrix of a certain bipartite graph. This allows us to derive several new constructions to obtain graphs with an identifiable scaling reparametrization. Using these constructions, a large subclass of such graphs is obtained. Finally, we present a procedure of subdividing or deleting edges to ensure that a model has an identifiable scaling reparametrization.
math.CO↗
Orthogonal and unitary tensor decomposition from an algebraic perspective
While every matrix admits a singular value decomposition, in which the terms are pairwise orthogonal in a strong sense, higher-order tensors typically do not admit such an orthogonal decomposition. Those that do have attracted attention from theoretical computer science and scientific computing. We complement this existing body of literature with an algebro-geometric analysis of the set of orthogonally decomposable tensors. More specifically, we prove that they form a real-algebraic variety defined by polynomials of degree at most four. The exact degrees, and the corresponding polynomials, are different in each of three times two scenarios: ordinary, symmetric, or alternating tensors; and real-orthogonal versus complex-unitary. A key feature of our approach is a surprising connection between orthogonally decomposable tensors and semisimple algebras---associative in the ordinary and symmetric settings and of compact Lie type in the alternating setting.
math.AG↗
The average number of critical rank-one approximations to a tensor
Motivated by the many potential applications of low-rank multi-way tensor approximations, we set out to count the rank-one tensors that are critical points of the distance function to a general tensor v. As this count depends on v, we average over v drawn from a Gaussian distribution, and find formulas that relates this average to problems in random matrix theory.
math.OC↗
Finiteness results for Abelian tree models
Equivariant tree models are statistical models used in the reconstruction of phylogenetic trees from genetic data. Here equivariant refers to a symmetry group imposed on the root distribution and on the transition matrices in the model. We prove that if that symmetry group is Abelian, then the Zariski closures of these models are defined by polynomial equations of bounded degree, independent of the tree. Moreover, we show that there exists a polynomial-time membership test for that Zariski closure. This generalises earlier results on tensors of bounded rank, which correspond to the case where the group is trivial, and implies a qualitative variant of a quantitative conjecture by Sturmfels and Sullivant in the case where the group and the alphabet coincide. Our proofs exploit the symmetries of an infinite-dimensional projective limit of Abelian star models.
math.AG↗
Plücker varieties and higher secants of Sato's Grassmannian
Every Grassmannian, in its Plücker embedding, is defined by quadratic polynomials. We prove a vast, qualitative, generalisation of this fact to what we call Plücker varieties. A Plücker variety is in fact a family of varieties in exterior powers of vector spaces that, like the Grassmannian, is functorial in the vector space and behaves well under duals. A special case of our result says that for each fixed natural number k, the k-th secant variety of any Plücker-embedded Grassmannian is defined in bounded degree independent of the Grassmannian. Our approach is to take the limit of a Plücker variety in the dual of a highly symmetric space known as the infinite wedge, and to prove that up to symmetry the limit is defined by finitely many polynomial equations. For this we prove the auxilliary result that for every natural number p the space of p-tuples of infinite-by-infinite matrices is Noetherian modulo row and column operations. Our results have algorithmic counterparts: every bounded Plücker variety has a polynomial-time membership test, and the same holds for Zariski-closed, basis-independent properties of p-tuples of matrices.
math.AG↗
Noetherianity for infinite-dimensional toric varieties
We consider a large class of monomial maps respecting an action of the infinite symmetric group, and prove that the toric ideals arising as their kernels are finitely generated up to symmetry. Our class includes many important examples where Noetherianity was recently proved or conjectured. In particular, our results imply Hillar-Sullivant's Independent Set Theorem and settle several finiteness conjectures due to Aschenbrenner, Martin del Campo, Hillar, and Sullivant. We introduce a matching monoid and show that its monoid ring is Noetherian up to symmetry. Our approach is then to factorize a more general equivariant monomial map into two parts going through this monoid. The kernels of both parts are finitely generated up to symmetry: recent work by Yamaguchi-Ogawa-Takemura on the (generalized) Birkhoff model provides an explicit degree bound for the kernel of the first part, while for the second part the finiteness follows from the Noetherianity of the matching monoid ring.
math.AC↗
Automorphism groups of Gaussian chain graph models
In this paper we extend earlier work on groups acting on Gaussian graphical models to Gaussian Bayesian networks and more general Gaussian models defined by chain graphs. We discuss the maximal group which leaves a given model invariant and provide basic statistical applications of this result. This includes equivariant estimation, maximal invariants and robustness. The computation of the group requires finding the essential graph. However, by applying Studeny's theory of imsets we show that computations for DAGs can be performed efficiently without building the essential graph. In our proof we derive simple necessary and sufficient conditions on vanishing sub-minors of the concentration matrix in the model.
math.ST↗