Pfaffian systems of \(A\)-hypergeometric equations. I: Bases of twisted cohomology groups. (Q728223)

\(A\)-hypergeometric functions are studied and bases for their Pfaffian systems are computed. The motivation comes from statistics: the \(A\)-distribution is a generalization of the beta distribution or the gamma distribution. The corresponding normalizing constant can be evaluated using the holonomic gradient method (HGM). For this purpose a Pfaffian system is required. Constructing such a Pfaffian system, or even determining a basis for it, are computationally demanding tasks, which are traditionally achieved by computing a Gröbner basis in the algebra of linear differential operators with rational function coefficients. The authors show (Theorem 1) that the basis for the Pfaffian system can be equivalently obtained as the monomial basis of a related affine toric ideal. Then, they turn to the study of twisted cohomology groups. They give a computational method for determining a basis of the twisted cohomology group associated to a system of generic sparse polynomials or, more generally, to any \(A\)-hypergeometric system. As a main ingredient for this result, rapid decay homology cycles are employed. The second part of the paper (Section 4) is dedicated to study \(A\)-hypergeometric systems for order polytopes. This part presents a combinatorial method for certain classes of generic sparse polynomials. This method is based on the distributive lattice of all poset ideals of a given finite partially ordered set, where one needs to study descents of maximal chains. The authors also hint to a connection with hyperplane arrangements. In the last section, a class of combinatorial objects, called ``bouquets'', is studied. For finite posets \(P_1,\dots,P_q\) and their corresponding poset ideals \(L_1,\dots,L_q\), the finite meet-semilattice \(\bigcup_{i=1}^q L_i\) is called a bouquet. It is shown that the \(A\)-hypergeometric systems associated with such lattices yield the Lauricella hypergeometric function \(F_A\).