Sparse resultant under vanishing coefficients (Q1408687)

Let \(f_1, \dots, f_n\) be sparse Laurent polynomials with supports \({\mathcal A}_1, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n\) and let \(\widetilde{\mathcal A}_1 \supset {\mathcal A}_1\). Then a natural question arises: Is there a relation between the sparse resultant of \(f_1, \dots, f_n\) with respect to the supports \(\widetilde{\mathcal A}_1, {\mathcal A}_2, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n\) and the sparse resultant of \(f_1, \dots, f_n\) with respect to the supports \({\mathcal A}_1, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n\)? The main result of the paper is an answer to the above question. More precisely, the author gives an explicit formula which expresses the sparse resultant of \(f_1, \dots, f_n\) with respect to \(\widetilde{\mathcal A}_1, {\mathcal A}_2, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n\) as a suitable power \(N\) of the sparse resultant of \(f_1, \dots, f_n\) with respect to \({\mathcal A}_1, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n\) times a product of powers of sparse resultants of some parts of the \(f_i\)'s. Moreover the given factors are all irreducible. The explicit value of \(N\) is given by \([{\mathcal L}(\widetilde{\mathcal A}_1, {\mathcal A}_2, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n):{\mathcal L}({\mathcal A}_1, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n)]\), i.e.\ the quotient of the volumes of the fundamental simplices of the lattices \({\mathcal L}({\mathcal A}_1, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n)\) and \({\mathcal L}(\widetilde{\mathcal A}_1, {\mathcal A}_2, \dots, {\mathcal A}_n)\). The result is important for applications with perturbed data where very small coefficients arise as well as when one computes resultants with respect to some fixed supports, not necessarily the supports of the \(f_i\)'s, in order to speed up computations. The results of the paper extends some work by Sturmfels on sparse resultant under vanishing coefficients. Other consequences of the paper are a generalization of a theorem for Dixon resultant by Kapur and Saxena and a generalization of the Pedersen's and Sturmfels' Poisson-type product formula.