Binomial residues (Q1613957)

The paper under review studies rational functions in \(2n\) variables \(x_1,\dots ,x_n,y_1,\dots ,y_n\), defined by residue integrals of the form \[ R_{\Gamma}(x,y)=\int_{\Gamma}\frac{t^{\gamma}}{(x_1+t^{a_1}y_1)^{\beta_1} \dots (x_1+t^{a_n}y_n)^{\beta_n}} \frac{d t_1}{t_1}\wedge \dots \wedge \frac{d t_d}{t_d}, \] where \(a_1,\dots ,a_n\) are non-zero lattice vectors which span \(\mathbb{Z}^d\), \(\gamma \in\mathbb{Z}^d\), \(\beta _1,\dots \beta _n\in\mathbb{Z}_{>0}\), and \(\Gamma\) is a certain kind of compact \(d\)-cycle in the torus \((C^*)^d\). Such a function is said to be a \textit{binomial residue}. From the analytic point, binomial residues are hypergeometric integrals and thus rational solutions of certain A-hypergeometric systems of differential equations in the sense of Gel'fand, Kapranov and Zelevinsky. The hypergeometric system annihilating \(R_{\Gamma}(x,y)\) is a certain left ideal \(H_A(-\beta,-\gamma)\) in the corresponding Weyl algebra, where the matrix \(A\) is the \textit{Lawrence lifting} of \(a_1,\dots a_n\). An invariant \(\chi (A)\) is introduced as the Euler characteristic of the matroid complex given by the submatrix \((a_1,\dots a_n)\) of \(A\). If \(R(\beta ,\gamma)\) is the vector space of rational solutions of \(H_A(-\beta,-\gamma)\), then \(U(\beta,\gamma)\) denotes the subspace of functions that depend polynomially on at least one of the variables (\textit{unstable functions}). Main result is the following Theorem: The space \(R(\beta ,\gamma)/U(\beta ,\gamma)\) of stable rational A-hypergeometric functions of degree \((-\beta ,-\gamma)\) has dimension \(|\chi (A)|\) and is spanned by binomial residues \(R_{\Gamma}(x,y)\). Section 2 of the paper establishes the upper bound for the dimension in the theorem, in the third, binomial residues and toric geometry are studied. Section 4 is devoted to the computation of binomial residues, giving an algorithm which uses Gröbner bases. In the final section, the missing estimate for the proof of the theorem ist given. As an application, the authors prove a conjecture from their paper [Compos. Math. 128, 217-240 (2001; Zbl 0990.33013)] for Lawrence configurations.