Generic tropical varieties (Q659906)

Let \(K\) be an infinite field. For \(f=\sum a_\nu x ^\nu\in K[x_1,\dots, x_n]\) and \(\omega\in \mathbb R^ n\), the \(\omega\)-initial polynomial \textrm \(\mathrm{in}_\omega (f)\) of \(f\) is the sum of the terms of \(f\) with minimal inner product \(\omega\cdot\nu\). The \(\omega\)-initial ideal of a graded ideal \(I\) is the ideal generated by the \(\omega\)-initial polynomials of the elements of \(I\). Thus, \(I\) gives rise to an equivalence relation on \( \mathbb R^ n\) : two vectors are equivalent if the initial ideal is the same. The equivalence classes are the relatively open cones of a certain fan called the Groebner fan of \(I\). The tropical variety of \(I\) is the set of \(\omega\) such that for all \(f\in I\), \(\mathrm{in}_\omega (f)\) is not a monomial. The tropical variety is a subfan of the Groebner fan. The main result of the paper is that for any given \(I\) there exists a non-empty Zariski open subset \(U\) of \(GL_n(K)\) such that for \(g\in U\), the Groebner fan of \(g(I)\) and the tropical variety of \(g(I)\) do not depend on \(g\). This can be seen as an analog to the existence of the generic initial ideal in Groebner basis theory. As a further result, the generic tropical variety is determined as a set in general, and also as a fan for principal ideals and linear ideals.