Sparse effective membership problems via residue currents (Q634801)

The author uses residue currents on toric varieties to obtain bounds on the degrees of solutions to polynomial ideal membership problems. The bounds depend on (the volume of) the Newton polytope of the polynomial system and are therefore well adjusted to sparse polynomial systems. The author presents sparse versions of Max Noether's AF+BG theorem, Macaulay's theorem, Kollár's effective Nullstellensatz, as well as recent results by Hickel and Andersson-Götmark. We will explain that in more detail. Let \(F_1, \dots, F_m\), and \(\Phi\) be polynomials in \(\mathbb{C}[z_1, \dots, z_n]\) and assume that \(\Phi\) vanishes on the common zero set of the \(F_j\). Then Hilbert's Nullstellensatz asserts that there are polynomials \(G_1, \dots, G_m\) such that \[ \sum_{j=1}^m F_j G_j = \Phi^\nu \] for some integer \(\nu\) large enough. It is an interesting and intensively studied problem to bound the complexity of the solutions \((\nu, G_1, \dots, G_m)\), e.g. in the sense of finding bounds for \(\nu\) and the degrees of the \(G_j\) in terms of the degrees of the \(F_j\). We should mention some important contributions of \textit{J. Kollár} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 1, No. 4, 963--975 (1988; Zbl 0682.14001)], \textit{L. Ein} und \textit{R. Lazarsfeld} [Invent. Math. 137, No. 2, 427--448 (1999; Zbl 0944.14003)], and \textit{Z. Jelonek} [Invent. Math. 162, No. 1, 1--17 (2005; Zbl 1087.14003)]. An account of the state of the art can be found in the introduction of the paper under review. The present paper deals with the case of a sparse system of polynomials \((F_1, \dots, F_m)\), meaning that its Newton polytope has small volume (in certain senses). Recall that the support \(\text{supp\,} F\) of a Laurent polynomial \[ F=\sum_{\alpha\in\mathbb{Z}^n} c_\alpha z^\alpha = \sum c_\alpha z_1^{\alpha_1} \cdots z_n^{\alpha_n} \] in \(\mathbb{C}[z_1^{\pm 1}, \dots, z_n^{\pm 1}]\) is defined as \(\text{supp\,} F=\{\alpha\in\mathbb{Z}^n: c_\alpha\neq 0\}\), and that the Newton polytope \(\mathcal{NP}(F_1, \dots, F_m)\) of the system of polynomials \(F_1, \dots, F_m\) is the convex hull of \(\bigcup_j \text{supp\,} F_j\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\). Recall also that a lattice polytope is a polytope in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) with vertices in \(\mathbb{Z}^n\). The author uses residue currents on toric varieties to obtain bounds on the degrees of solutions to polynomial ideal membership problems (as e.g. the effective Nullstellensatz), where the bounds depend on (the volume of) the Newton polytope of the polynomial system and are therefore well adjusted to sparse polynomial systems. Residue currents have been used as a tool to solve polynomial membership problems by several authors, see, for example, [\textit{C. A. Berenstein, R. Gay, A. Vidras} and \textit{A. Yger}, Residue currents and Bezout identities. Progress in Mathematics. 114. Basel: Birkhäuser (1993; Zbl 0802.32001)]. The paper under review extends the ideas developed by \textit{M. Andersson} [Ann. Inst. Fourier 56, No. 1, 101--119 (2006; Zbl 1092.32002)] and \textit{M. Andersson} and \textit{E. Götmark} [Math. Ann. 349, No. 2, 345--365 (2011; Zbl 1216.32002)], who used residue currents on complex projective space \(\mathbb{P}^n\) to obtain effective solutions. The author considers residue currents on general toric compactifications of \(\mathbb{C}^n\) in order to obtain sparse effective results. Given a lattice polytope \(\mathcal{P}\) one can construct a toric variety \(X_{\mathcal{P}}\) and a line bundle \(\mathcal{O}(D_{\mathcal{P}})\) on \(X_{\mathcal{P}}\) whose global sections correspond precisely to polynomials with support in \(\mathcal{P}\).