Solving Sparse Polynomial Systems using Gröbner Bases and Resultants

Abstract

Solving systems of polynomial equations is a central problem in nonlinear and computational algebra. Since Buchberger's algorithm for computing Gröbner bases in the 60s, there has been a lot of progress in this domain. Moreover, these equations have been employed to model and solve problems from diverse disciplines such as biology, cryptography, and robotics. Currently, we have a good understanding of how to solve generic systems from a theoretical and algorithmic point of view. However, polynomial equations encountered in practice are usually structured, and so many properties and results about generic systems do not apply to them. For this reason, a common trend in the last decades has been to develop mathematical and algorithmic frameworks to exploit specific structures of systems of polynomials. Arguably, the most common structure is sparsity; that is, the polynomials of the systems only involve a few monomials. Since Bernstein, Khovanskii, and Kushnirenko's work on the expected number of solutions of sparse systems, toric geometry has been the default mathematical framework to employ sparsity. In particular, it is the crux of the matter behind the extension of classical tools to systems, such as resultant computations, homotopy continuation methods, and most recently, Gröbner bases. In this work, we will review these classical tools, their extensions, and recent progress in exploiting sparsity for solving polynomial systems.