Coordinate-wise Powers of Algebraic Varieties

We introduce and study coordinate-wise powers of subvarieties of $\mathbb{P}^n$, i.e. varieties arising from raising all points in a given subvariety of $\mathbb{P}^n$ to the $r$-th power, coordinate by coordinate. This corresponds to studying the image of a subvariety of $\mathbb{P}^n$ under the quotient of $\mathbb{P}^n$ by the action of the finite group $\mathbb{Z}_r^{n+1}$. We determine the degree of coordinate-wise powers and study their defining equations, particularly for hypersurfaces and linear spaces. Applying these results, we compute the degree of the variety of orthostochastic matrices and determine iterated dual and reciprocal varieties of power sum hypersurfaces. We also establish a link between coordinate-wise squares of linear spaces and the study of real symmetric matrices with a degenerate eigenspectrum.Comment: 26 page

Towards classifying toric degenerations of cubic surfaces

We investigate the class of degenerations of smooth cubic surfaces which are obtained from degenerating their Cox rings to toric algebras. More precisely, we work in the spirit of Sturmfels and Xu who use the theory of Khovanskii bases to determine toric degenerations of Del Pezzo surfaces of degree 4 and who leave the question of classifying these degenerations in the degree 3 case as an open problem. In order to carry out this classification we describe an approach which is closely related to tropical geometry and present partial results in this direction.Comment: v2: 21 pages, section 1 rewritten, added sections 6 and

Algebraic Analysis of the Hypergeometric Function 1F1 of a Matrix Argument

In this article, we investigate Muirhead's classical system of differential operators for the hypergeometric function 1F1 of a matrix argument. We formulate a conjecture for the combinatorial structure of the characteristic variety of its Weyl closure which is both supported by computational evidence as well as theoretical considerations. In particular, we determine the singular locus of this system.Comment: 26 pages. v2 changes: included Appendix discussing the singular locus for degenerate parameter

Towards classifying toric degenerations of cubic surfaces

We investigate the class of degenerations of smooth cubic surfaces which are obtained from degenerating their Cox rings to toric algebras. More precisely, we work in the spirit of Sturmfels and Xu who use the theory of Khovanskii bases to determine toric degenerations of Del Pezzo surfaces of degree 4 and who leave the question of classifying these degenerations in the degree 3 case as an open problem. In order to carry out this classification we describe an approach which is closely related to tropical geometry and present partial results in this direction. &nbsp

Tautological systems, homogeneous spaces and the holonomic rank problem

Many GKZ-systems that arise from a geometric setting can be endowed with the structure of mixed Hodge modules. We generalize this fundamental result to the tautological systems associated to homogeneous spaces by giving a functorial construction for them. As an application, we solve the holonomic rank problem for such tautological systems in full generality

Rational invariants of even ternary forms under the orthogonal group

In this article we determine a generating set of rational invariants of minimal cardinality for the action of the orthogonal group $\mathrm{O}_3$ on the space $\mathbb{R}[x,y,z]_{2d}$ of ternary forms of even degree $2d$. The construction relies on two key ingredients: On one hand, the Slice Lemma allows us to reduce the problem to dermining the invariants for the action on a subspace of the finite subgroup $\mathrm{B}_3$ of signed permutations. On the other hand, our construction relies in a fundamental way on specific bases of harmonic polynomials. These bases provide maps with prescribed $\mathrm{B}_3$-equivariance properties. Our explicit construction of these bases should be relevant well beyond the scope of this paper. The expression of the $\mathrm{B}_3$-invariants can then be given in a compact form as the composition of two equivariant maps. Instead of providing (cumbersome) explicit expressions for the $\mathrm{O}_3$-invariants, we provide efficient algorithms for their evaluation and rewriting. We also use the constructed $\mathrm{B}_3$-invariants to determine the $\mathrm{O}_3$-orbit locus and provide an algorithm for the inverse problem of finding an element in $\mathbb{R}[x,y,z]_{2d}$ with prescribed values for its invariants. These are the computational issues relevant in brain imaging.Comment: v3 Changes: Reworked presentation of Neuroimaging application, refinement of Definition 3.1. To appear in "Foundations of Computational Mathematics