arXiv subjects

Simon Telen

Publications and source records attributed to Simon Telen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Benchmarks in Leipzig

Between April 1 and May 15, 2026, a group of 49 mathematicians compiled a dataset of research-level mathematics questions with known answers. Most of the work was done during the 3-day workshop *Benchmarks in Leipzig* with 35 participants at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. We present the resulting collection of 100 questions. We evaluated these questions in three stages: a single attempt by five state-of-the-art LLMs, followed by a 20-runs-per-model evaluation with three of these models, and finally a 3-run attempt with two heavy-thinking models. After Stage 1, 41 questions remained completely unsolved; after Stage 2, this count dropped to 16; and we concluded Stage 3 with only 2 unsolved questions. This demonstrates that the mathematical reasoning capabilities of LLMs are becoming impressive.

math.HO↗

arXiv2026

Positive Geometries from Cubic Surfaces

We present a study of cubic surfaces from the novel perspective of positive geometry. Our positive geometries have dimension two (the surface minus its 27 lines), dimension three (its complement in 3-space), and dimension four (the moduli space). In each case we explore the positive arrangement, its combinatorial rank, and the canonical forms.

math.AG↗

arXiv2026

The Algebraic Boundary of Graph Elliptopes

This paper studies the algebraic boundary of the elliptope $\mathcal{E}(G)$ of a graph $G$. In particular, we completely characterize the algebraic boundary of $\mathcal{E}(G)$ when $G$ is cycle completable. In this case, the boundary is a union of determinantal hypersurfaces and Lissajous varieties, i.e., images of rational linear subspaces under the coordinatewise cosine map. As an application, we show that the algebraic boundary of $\mathcal{E}(G)$ is disjoint from its interior precisely when $\mathcal{E}(G)$ is a spectrahedron or, equivalently, when $G$ is a chordal graph. A central ingredient for the defining equation of the boundary hypersurface is the cycle polynomial, which captures the algebraic boundary of the elliptope $\mathcal{E}(C_n)$ of the $n$-th cycle graph $C_n$. We show that the cycle polynomial of $C_n$ is the resultant of two smaller cycle polynomials. Via this result, Sylvester's determinantal formula offers an inductive method for computing the cycle polynomial which mirrors a geometric property of metric polytopes. We also determine the degree of the homogeneous cycle polynomial, settling an open question of Sturmfels and Uhler (2010).

math.AG↗

arXiv2026

Principal Matroid Determinants

We develop a theory of principal determinants and hypergeometric systems for realizable matroids. Our framework parallels the toric theory of Gel'fand, Kapranov, and Zelevinsky (GKZ), but with the combinatorics of matroids and their flats replacing the usual role of polytopes and their faces. In this analogy, the toric variety is replaced by a reciprocal linear space. The {principal $A$-determinant} is replaced by the {principal matroid determinant}, defined as a specialization of a resultant. The GKZ hypergeometric system is replaced by the {matroid hypergeometric system}, a holonomic $D$-module of combinatorial nature whose singular locus is conjectured to be the principal matroid~determinant.

math.AG↗

arXiv2026

Positive Charts of Toric Varieties

We construct affine charts of a smooth projective toric variety which contain its nonnegative points, and which admit a closed embedding into the total coordinate space of Cox's quotient construction. We show that such positive charts arise from smooth subcones of the nef cone. To each positive chart we associate an algebraic moment map, the fibers of which are the critical points of a monomial function in Cox coordinates. This work provides a toric framework for the theory of $u$-equations in positive geometry.

math.AG↗

arXiv2025

Galois Groups of Symmetric Cubic Surfaces

The Galois group of a family of cubic surfaces is the monodromy group of the 27 lines of its generic fibre. We describe a method to compute this group for linear systems of cubic surfaces using certified numerical computations. Applying this to all families which are invariant under the action of a subgroup of $S_5$, we find that the Galois group is often much smaller than the Weyl group $W(E_6)$. As a byproduct, we compute the discriminants of these~families. Our method allows to compute the monodromy representation on homology of any family of generically smooth projective hypersurfaces. To illustrate this broader scope, we include computations for symmetric quartic surfaces.

math.AG↗

arXiv2025

Lissajous Varieties

This paper studies affine algebraic varieties parametrized by sine and cosine functions, generalizing algebraic Lissajous figures in the plane. We show that, up to a combinatorial factor, the degree of these varieties equals the volume of a polytope. We deduce defining equations from rank constraints on a matrix with polynomial entries. We discuss applications of Lissajous varieties in dynamical systems, in particular the Kuramoto model. This leads us to study connections with convex optimization and Lissajous discriminants.

math.AG↗

arXiv2025

Positive Geometry of Polytopes and Polypols

These are lecture notes supporting a minicourse taught at the Summer School in Total Positivity and Quantum Field Theory at CMSA Harvard in June 2025. We give an introduction to positive geometries and their canonical forms. We present the original definition by Arkani-Hamed, Bai and Lam, and a more recent definition suggested by work of Brown and Dupont. We compute canonical forms of convex polytopes and of quasi-regular polypols, which are nonlinear generalizations of polygons in the plane. The text is a collection of known results. It contains many examples and a list of exercises.

math.AG↗

arXiv2025

Toric Amplitudes and Universal Adjoints

A toric amplitude is a rational function associated to a simplicial polyhedral fan. The definition is inspired by scattering amplitudes in particle physics. We prove algebraic properties of such amplitudes and study the geometry of their zero loci. These hypersurfaces play the role of Warren's adjoint via a dual volume interpretation. We investigate their Fano schemes and singular loci via the nef cone and toric irrelevant ideal of the fan.

math.AG↗

arXiv2025

What is Positive Geometry?

This article serves as an introduction to the special volume on Positive Geometry in the journal Le Matematiche. We attempt to answer the question in the title by describing the origins and objects of positive geometry at this early stage of its development. We discuss the problems addressed in the volume and report on the progress. We also list some open challenges.

math.AG↗

arXiv2024

Logarithmic Discriminants of Hyperplane Arrangements

A recurring task in particle physics and statistics is to compute the complex critical points of a product of powers of affine-linear functions. The logarithmic discriminant characterizes exponents for which such a function has a degenerate critical point in the corresponding hyperplane arrangement complement. We study properties of this discriminant, exploiting its connection with the Hurwitz form of a reciprocal linear space.

math.AG↗

arXiv2024

Proudfoot-Speyer degenerations of scattering equations

We study scattering equations of hyperplane arrangements from the perspective of combinatorial commutative algebra and numerical algebraic geometry. We formulate the problem as linear equations on a reciprocal linear space and develop a degeneration-based homotopy algorithm for solving them. We investigate the Hilbert regularity of the corresponding homogeneous ideal and apply our methods to CHY scattering equations.

math.AG↗

arXiv2024

Euler Stratifications of Hypersurface Families

We stratify families of projective and very affine hypersurfaces according to their topological Euler characteristic. Our new algorithms compute all strata using algebro-geometric techniques. For very affine hypersurfaces, we investigate and exploit the relation to critical point computations. Euler stratifications are relevant in particle physics and algebraic statistics. They fully describe the dependence of the number of master integrals, respectively the maximum likelihood degree, on kinematic or model parameters.

math.AG↗

arXiv2024

Santal\'o Geometry of Convex Polytopes

The Santal\'o point of a convex polytope is the interior point which leads to a polar dual of minimal volume. This minimization problem is relevant in interior point methods for convex optimization, where the logarithm of the dual volume is known as the universal barrier function. When translating the facet hyperplanes, the Santal\'o point traces out a semi-algebraic set. We describe and compute this geometry using algebraic and numerical techniques. We exploit connections with statistics, optimization and physics.

math.AG↗

arXiv2024

Adjoints and Canonical Forms of Tree Amplituhedra

We consider semi-algebraic subsets of the Grassmannian of lines in three-space called tree amplituhedra. These arise in the study of scattering amplitudes from particle physics. Our main result states that tree amplituhedra in ${\rm Gr}(2,4)$ are positive geometries. The numerator of their canonical form plays the role of the adjoint in Wachspress geometry, and is uniquely determined by explicit interpolation conditions.

math.AG↗

arXiv2024

Chebyshev Varieties

Chebyshev varieties are algebraic varieties parametrized by Chebyshev polynomials or their multivariate generalizations. We determine the dimension, degree, singular locus and defining equations of these varieties. We explain how they play the role of toric varieties in sparse polynomial root finding, when monomials are replaced by Chebyshev polynomials. We present numerical root finding algorithms that exploit our results.

math.AG↗

arXiv2023

Principal Landau Determinants

We reformulate the Landau analysis of Feynman integrals with the aim of advancing the state of the art in modern particle-physics computations. We contribute new algorithms for computing Landau singularities, using tools from polyhedral geometry and symbolic/numerical elimination. Inspired by the work of Gelfand, Kapranov, and Zelevinsky (GKZ) on generalized Euler integrals, we define the principal Landau determinant of a Feynman diagram. We illustrate with a number of examples that this algebraic formalism allows to compute many components of the Landau singular locus. We adapt the GKZ framework by carefully specializing Euler integrals to Feynman integrals. For instance, ultraviolet and infrared singularities are detected as irreducible components of an incidence variety, which project dominantly to the kinematic space. We compute principal Landau determinants for the infinite families of one-loop and banana diagrams with different mass configurations, and for a range of cutting-edge Standard Model processes. Our algorithms build on the Julia package Landau.jl and are implemented in the new open-source package PLD.jl available at https://mathrepo.mis.mpg.de/PLD/.

math-ph↗

arXiv2023

Landau Singularities Revisited: Computational Algebraic Geometry for Feynman Integrals

We reformulate the analysis of singularities of Feynman integrals in a way that can be practically applied to perturbative computations in the Standard Model in dimensional regularization. After highlighting issues in the textbook treatment of Landau singularities, we develop an algorithm for classifying and computing them using techniques from computational algebraic geometry. We introduce an algebraic variety called the principal Landau determinant, which captures the singularities even in the presence of massless particles or UV/IR divergences. We illustrate this for 114 example diagrams, including a cutting-edge 2-loop 5-point non-planar QCD process with multiple mass scales. The algorithms introduced in this work are implemented in the open-source Julia package PLD.jl available at https://mathrepo.mis.mpg.de/PLD/.

hep-th↗