Maximally positive polynomial systems supported on circuits (Q480671)

This paper investigates complex systems of Laurent polynomials in the same number of variables as the size of the system (i.e. complete intersections), all of which have the same support, considering the question of when all of their solutions in the complex torus have real positive coordinates. The supports in question are circuits, i.e.\ there is a single affine dependence among their exponent vectors. Previous work of the author established a bound on the number of positive solutions (where non-positive ones are also allowed), in terms of the number of nonzero coefficients in the unique affine dependence in the support. This paper shows that, if the system has \textit{only} positive solutions, then there is a unique circuit meeting this bound, up to the obvious integer affine transformations. More generally, all circuits allowing a system with all solutions positive are classified; there are a finite number in each dimension. The technique involves dessins d'enfant associated to the eliminant polynomial of the system, which in the case of interest are of highly constrained form: all vertices of each of the three special colours (lying over 0, 1, and infinity) fall on the real axis in a fixed cyclic order, and the graph is conjugation-invariant. Thus there is a unique dessin corresponding to the system with a maximal number of positive solutions and no other complex solutions, and all other dessins concerned are obtained from this one by a certain vertex splitting operation. The author conjectures that any support, not necessarily a circuit, of a system with all solutions positive, has a basis of affine relations with no coefficient exceeding 2 in absolute value, though in this reviewer's opinion the data supporting this are still somewhat scant.