Towards a multidimensional Descartes rule (but still far away)

A. DICKENSTEIN

Pisa

Congreso; Algebraic Algorithms and Applications; 2017

Universidad de Pisa

The classical Descartes´ rule of signs bounds the number of positive real roots of a univariate real polynomial in terms of the number of sign variations of its coefficients. This is an extremely simple rule which is exact when all the roots are real, for instance, for characteristic polynomials of symmetric matrices. No general multivariate generalization is known for this rule, not even a conjectural one.I will gently describe two partial multivariate generalizations obtainedin collaboration with Stefan Müller, Elisenda Feliu, Georg Regensburger, Anne Shiu, Carsten Conradi and Frédéric Bihan. Our approach shows that the number of positive roots of a square polynomial system (of n polynomials in n variables) is related to the relation between the signs of the maximal minors of the matrix of exponents and of the matrix of coefficients.I will present an application of our results in the realm of biochemical reaction networks and will explain which are the main challenges to devise a complete multivariate generalization.