In this paper some classes of local polynomial functions on abelian groups
are characterized by the properties of their variety. For this characterization
we introduce a numerical quantity depending on the variety of the local
polynomial only. Moreover, we show that the known characterization of
polynomials among generalized polynomials can be simplified: a generalized
polynomial is a polynomial if and only if its variety contains finitely many
linearly independent additive functions.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to a Journal. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1403.448