Singular, nonsingular, and bounded rank completions of ACI-matrices (Q5962295)

Let \(F\) be a field and \(F[x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k]\) be the ring of polynomials in the indeterminates \(x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k\) with coefficients from the field \(F\). A matrix \(A\) with entries from \(F[x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k]\) is called an affine column independent matrix, abbreviated ACI-matrix, provided the following two conditions hold: (i) each entry of \(A\) is a polynomial in \(F[x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k]\) of degree at most one. (ii) an indeterminate does not appear with a nonzero coefficient in two different columns of \(A\). A partial matrix over \(F\) is a matrix in which some entries are specified as elements of \(F\), and the other entries are distinct indeterminates and can be freely chosen within \(F\). Let \(A_{m,n}(F[x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k])\) be the set of \(m\times n\) affine column independent matrices over \(F[x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k]\). This will be denoted by \(A_{n}(F[x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k])\) when \(m=n\). By a completion of a matrix in \(A_{n}(F[x_1,x_2,\dots,x_k])\) we mean an assignment of values in \(F\) to the indeterminates. In the paper under review, the authors answer some questions as follows: Problem 1. Given a nonnegative \(\rho\), characterize ACI-matrices all of whose completions have rank less than or equal to \(\rho\). Problem 2. Characterize ACI-matrices all of whose completions are nonsingular. They answer Problem 2 in the case that \(F\) has at least \(n+1\) elements where \(n\) is the order of the matrix. They also determine the maximum number of indeterminates that a partial matrix of a given order can have if all of its completions are nonsingular.