Curve valuations and mixed volumes in the implicitization of rational varieties (Q2082640)

Let \(\mathbb{K}\) be a field of characteristic zero, \(A_0,A_1,\dots,A_n\) finite sets of lattice points in \(\mathbb{Z}^d\) and \(f_0,\dots, f_n \in \mathbb{K}[ x_1^{\pm 1},\dots,x_d^{\pm 1}]\) be \(n+1\) non-zero Laurent polynomials in \(d\) variables supported on these sets. The classical question discussed in the present paper is the problem of implicitization, that is, to describe the prime ideal of polynomial relations among the coordinates of the rational map \(\textbf{f}:(\mathbb{K^*})^d \dashrightarrow (\mathbb{K^*})^n, \ \textbf{f}=\left( f_1/f_0,\dots,f_n/f_0 \right).\) Instead of finding the ideal of relations, the authors compute its tropicalization. This is a rational weighted balanced polyhedral fan in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) that captures the combinatorics of this ideal. They also study in detail the degree of closed image \(S\) of \(\textbf{f}\) in case it has dimension \(d.\) In particular, when \(S\) is a hypersurface they get the direction and the length of the edges of Newton polytope \(N(H)\) of a defining equation \(H\) for \(S\) from the description of the cones in the tropicalization of the image of \(\textbf{f}\) and their multiplicities. The main theorem has as a hypothesis that the polynomials \(f_0,\dots,f_n\) are general but the authors explain, and illustrate it by examples, that its proof can be used in generic and non-generic cases.