Generic consistency and nondegeneracy of vertically parametrized systems (Q6982185)

This article initiates a systematic study of (augmented) vertically parametrized polynomial systems of (Laurent) polynomial equations, arising in the study of chemical reaction networks and other applications. Such a system is defined by two sets of multivariate equations, \N\[\NC (a \star x^M) = 0, \quad Lx - b = 0.\N\]\NHere, \(x\in (\mathbb{C}^\ast)^n\) is vector of unknown, nonzero complex numbers. The symbol \(M\) denotes a \(n\times m\) integer matrix giving rise to the monomial vector \(x^M\in \mathbb{C}^m\). The symbol \(\star\) denotes the Hadamard product, and \(C\) and \(L\) are fixed matrices of size \(s\times m\) and \(\ell \times n\), with \(C\) assumed to be of full row rank. The adjective ``augmented'' is needed when \(\ell \ge 1.\) The ``parameters'' defining the system are the vectors \(a\in \mathbb{C}^m\) and \(b\in \mathbb{C}^\ell .\) The paper's main contribution is a criterion for phenomena related to the \emph{consistency} of such systems for generic parameter values.\N\NPrecisely, this criterion requires checking the Zariski-generic condition \N\[\N\begin{bmatrix} C \operatorname{diag} (w) M^T \operatorname{diag} (h)\\\NL \end{bmatrix} = s + \ell\N\]\Nfor some \(w \in \ker C\) and \(h \in (\mathbb{C}^\ast)^n.\) If this criterion holds, Theorem 3.7 then implies that (among other consequences) that a non-degenerate solution exists for generic parameter values \((a,b)\), and that the specialized system defines a radical ideal in \(\mathbb{C} [ x^\pm ].\) Conversely, if the criterion fails, the system is generically inconsistent.\N\NThe criterion above is established directly from computing the Jacobian of the vertically parametrized system, and depends upon the additional fact that an associated incidence variety of parameter-solution pairs \((a,b, x)\) is smooth and unirational (Theorem 3.1.) Conditions for the existence of nondegenerate real solutions, which can be checked with linear programming, are discussed in Section 3.5. The paper provides additional results involving special cases such as ``freely parametrized systems'' (known as sparse systems in the literature), and extending the main results to the affine case \(x\in \mathbb{C}^n.\)