Optimal Descartes' rule of signs for systems supported on circuits (Q832477)

Fix an ordered exponent set \(\mathcal{A}:=\{ a_0,a_1,\ldots ,a_{n+1}\}\), \(a_j\in \mathbb{Z}^n\). For any coefficient matrix \(C=(c_{i,j})\in \mathbb{R}^{n\times (n+2)}\), consider the sparse polynomial system in \(n\) variables \(x=(x_1,\ldots , x_n)\) with support \(\mathcal{A}\): \(f_i(x)=\sum_{j=0}^{n+1}c_{i,j}x^{a_j}=0\). The authors present an optimal version of Descartes' rule of signs to bound the number of positive real roots of the system. This sharp upper bound is given in terms of the sign variation of a sequence associated to the exponents and the coefficients of the system.