Computing the canonical representation of constructible sets (Q294390)

A locally closed set is the intersection of a closed set and an open set. The canonical representation of a locally closed set consists in two specially chosen radical ideals. This article describes an algorithm \textsc{Crep} to compute a canonical representation of a locally closed set. It then uses \textsc{Crep} to compute a canonical representation of a constructible set, a finite union of locally closed sets. Constructible sets have the useful application that they ``appear naturally in solving parametric polynomial systems of equations.'' In particular, one can use constructible sets to construct a Gröbner cover; that is, a finite set of pairs of sets used to investigate parametric polynomial systems (see [\textit{A. Montes} and \textit{M. Wibner}, J. Symb. Comp. 45, 1391--1425 (2010; Zbl 1207.13108)]). Two algorithms, \textsc{FirstLevel} and \textsc{ConsLevels}, compute the canonical representation of constructible sets. A third algorithm, \textsc{SimplifyUnion}, can accelerate \textsc{FirstLevel}. The article concludes with three examples: one, a geometric problem in 3-dimensional space; the second, an application to the computation of a Gröbner cover; and the third, a brief summary of how performance changed in one (unnamed) system where the use of \textsc{SimplifyUnion} reduced the time to compute a canonical representation of a constructible set by roughly two-thirds.