33,269 research outputs found
On the frontiers of polynomial computations in tropical geometry
We study some basic algorithmic problems concerning the intersection of
tropical hypersurfaces in general dimension: deciding whether this intersection
is nonempty, whether it is a tropical variety, and whether it is connected, as
well as counting the number of connected components. We characterize the
borderline between tractable and hard computations by proving
-hardness and #-hardness results under various
strong restrictions of the input data, as well as providing polynomial time
algorithms for various other restrictions.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. To appear in Journal of Symbolic Computatio
Applying machine learning to the problem of choosing a heuristic to select the variable ordering for cylindrical algebraic decomposition
Cylindrical algebraic decomposition(CAD) is a key tool in computational
algebraic geometry, particularly for quantifier elimination over real-closed
fields. When using CAD, there is often a choice for the ordering placed on the
variables. This can be important, with some problems infeasible with one
variable ordering but easy with another. Machine learning is the process of
fitting a computer model to a complex function based on properties learned from
measured data. In this paper we use machine learning (specifically a support
vector machine) to select between heuristics for choosing a variable ordering,
outperforming each of the separate heuristics.Comment: 16 page
Equilibria, Fixed Points, and Complexity Classes
Many models from a variety of areas involve the computation of an equilibrium
or fixed point of some kind. Examples include Nash equilibria in games; market
equilibria; computing optimal strategies and the values of competitive games
(stochastic and other games); stable configurations of neural networks;
analysing basic stochastic models for evolution like branching processes and
for language like stochastic context-free grammars; and models that incorporate
the basic primitives of probability and recursion like recursive Markov chains.
It is not known whether these problems can be solved in polynomial time. There
are certain common computational principles underlying different types of
equilibria, which are captured by the complexity classes PLS, PPAD, and FIXP.
Representative complete problems for these classes are respectively, pure Nash
equilibria in games where they are guaranteed to exist, (mixed) Nash equilibria
in 2-player normal form games, and (mixed) Nash equilibria in normal form games
with 3 (or more) players. This paper reviews the underlying computational
principles and the corresponding classes
Efficiently Detecting Torsion Points and Subtori
Suppose X is the complex zero set of a finite collection of polynomials in
Z[x_1,...,x_n]. We show that deciding whether X contains a point all of whose
coordinates are d_th roots of unity can be done within NP^NP (relative to the
sparse encoding), under a plausible assumption on primes in arithmetic
progression. In particular, our hypothesis can still hold even under certain
failures of the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis, such as the presence of
Siegel-Landau zeroes. Furthermore, we give a similar (but UNconditional)
complexity upper bound for n=1. Finally, letting T be any algebraic subgroup of
(C^*)^n we show that deciding whether X contains T is coNP-complete (relative
to an even more efficient encoding),unconditionally. We thus obtain new
non-trivial families of multivariate polynomial systems where deciding the
existence of complex roots can be done unconditionally in the polynomial
hierarchy -- a family of complexity classes lying between PSPACE and P,
intimately connected with the P=?NP Problem. We also discuss a connection to
Laurent's solution of Chabauty's Conjecture from arithmetic geometry.Comment: 21 pages, no figures. Final version, with additional commentary and
references. Also fixes a gap in Theorems 2 (now Theorem 1.3) regarding
translated subtor
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