This is an expository introduction to tropical algebraic geometry based on my lectures at the Workshop on Tropical Geometry and Integrable Systems in Glasgow, July 4-8, 2011, and at the ELGA 2011 school on Algebraic Geometry and Applications in Buenos Aires, August 1-5, 2011.
To each prime ideal in a polynomial ring over a field we associate an algebraic matroid and show that it is preserved under tropicalization. This gives a necessary condition for a tropical variety to be set-theoretically realizable from a prime ideal. We also show that there are infinitely many Bergman fans that are not set-theoretically realizable as the tropicalization of any ideal.
Tropical geometry is a piecewise linear "shadow" of algebraic geometry. It allows for the computation of several cohomological invariants of an algebraic variety. In particular, its application to enumerative algebraic geometry led to significant progress. In this survey, we give an introduction to tropical geometry techniques for algebraic curve counting problems. We also survey some recent developments, with a particular emphasis on the computation of the degree of the Severi varieties of the complex projective plane and other toric surfaces as well as Hurwitz numbers and applications to rea…
We discuss the classical problem of counting planes tangent to general canonical sextic curves at three points. We determine the number of real tritangents when such a curve is real. We then revisit a curve constructed by Emch with the greatest known number of real tritangents, and conversely construct a curve with very few real tritangents. Using recent results on the relation between algebraic and tropical theta characteristics, we show that the tropicalization of a canonical sextic curve has 15 tritangent planes.
We illustrate the use of tropical methods by generalizing a formula due to Abramovich and Bertram, extended later by Vakil. Namely, we exhibit relations between enumerative invariants of the Hirzebruch surfaces $Σ_n$ and $Σ_{n+2}$, obtained by deforming the first surface to the latter. Our strategy involves a tropical counterpart of deformations of Hirzebruch surfaces, and tropical enumerative geometry on a tropical surface in three-space.
Tropical mathematics redefines the rules of arithmetic by replacing addition with taking a maximum, and by replacing multiplication with addition. After briefly discussing a tropical version of linear algebra, we study polynomials build with these new operations. These equations define piecewise-linear geometric objects called tropical varieties. We explore these tropical varieties in two and three dimensions, building up discrete tools for studying them and determining their geometric properties. We then discuss the relationship between tropical geometry and algebraic geometry, which consider…
The paper consists of lecture notes for a mini-course given by the authors at the Gökova Geometry \& Topology conference in May 2014. We start the exposition with tropical curves in the plane and their applications to problems in classical enumerative geometry, and continue with a look at more general tropical varieties and their homology theories.
Recently, Baker and Norine have proven a Riemann-Roch theorem for finite graphs. We extend their results to metric graphs and thus establish a Riemann-Roch theorem for divisors on (abstract) tropical curves.
This paper introduces the foundations of the polynomial algebra and basic structures for algebraic geometry over the extended tropical semiring. Our development, which includes the tropical version for the fundamental theorem of algebra, leads to the reduced polynomial semiring -- a structure that provides a basis for developing a tropical analogue to the classical theory of commutative algebra. The use of the new notion of tropical algebraic com-sets, built upon the complements of tropical algebraic sets, eventually yields the tropical algebraic Nullstellensatz.
Tropical algebraic geometry is the geometry of the tropical semiring $(\mathbb{R},\min,+)$. Its objects are polyhedral cell complexes which behave like complex algebraic varieties. We give an introduction to this theory, with an emphasis on plane curves and linear spaces. New results include a complete description of the families of quadrics through four points in the tropical projective plane and a counterexample to the incidence version of Pappus' Theorem.
Patchworking theorems serve as a basic element of the correspondence between tropical and algebraic curves, which is a core of the tropical enumerative geometry. We present a new version of a patchworking theorem which relates plane tropical curves with complex and real algebraic curves having prescribed multiple points. It can be used to compute Welschinger invariants of non-toric Del Pezzo surfaces.
In this paper we study a construction of algebraic curves from combinatorial data. In the study of algebraic curves through degeneration, graphs usually appear as the dual intersection graph of the central fiber. Properties of such graphs can be encoded in so-called tropical curves. Our main concern is the relation between algebraic curves and tropical curves where the deformation problem is obstructed. Particular emphasis is put on the role of higher valent vertices of tropical curves, which has not been developed well so far in spite of its importance in this area of study. We will give a ge…
We study the classical result by Bruijn and Erd\H os regarding the bound on the number of lines determined by a $n$-point configuration in the plane, and in the light of the recently proven Tropical Sylvester-Gallai theorem, come up with a tropical version of the above-mentioned result. In this work, we introduce stable tropical lines, which help in answering questions pertaining to incidence geometry in the tropical plane. Projective duality in the tropical plane helps in translating the question for stable lines to stable intersections that have been previously studied in depth. Invoking dua…
We prove the following "linkage" theorem: two p-regular graphs of the same genus can be obtained from one another by a finite alternating sequence of one-edge-contractions; moreover this preserves 3-edge-connectivity. We use the linkage theorem to prove that various moduli spaces of tropical curves are connected through codimension one.
We study a tropical analogue of the projective dual variety of a hypersurface. When $X$ is a curve in $\mathbb{P}^2$ or a surface in $\mathbb{P}^3$, we provide an explicit description of $\text{Trop}(X^*)$ in terms of $\text{Trop}(X)$, as long as $\text{Trop}(X)$ is smooth and satisfies a mild genericity condition. As a consequence, when $X$ is a curve we describe the transformation of Newton polygons under projective duality, and recover classical formulas for the degree of a dual plane curve. For higher dimensional hypersurfaces $X$, we give a partial description of $\text{Trop}(X^*)$.
We study rational double Hurwitz cycles, i.e. loci of marked rational stable curves admitting a map to the projective line with assigned ramification profiles over two fixed branch points. Generalizing the phenomenon observed for double Hurwitz numbers, such cycles are piecewise polynomial in the entries of the special ramification; the chambers of polynomiality and wall crossings have an explicit and "modular" description. A main goal of this paper is to simultaneously carry out this investigation for the corresponding objects in tropical geometry, underlining a precise combinatorial duality …
We construct motivic invariants of a subvariety of an algebraic torus from its tropicalization and initial degenerations. More specifically, we introduce an invariant of a compactification of such a variety called the "tropical motivic nearby fiber." This invariant specializes in the schon case to the Hodge-Deligne polynomial of the limit mixed Hodge structure of a corresponding degeneration. We give purely combinatorial expressions for this Hodge-Deligne polynomial in the cases of schon hypersurfaces and smooth tropical varieties. We also deduce a formula for the Euler characteristic of a gen…
Tropical algebraic geometry is an active new field of mathematics that establishes and studies some very general principles to translate algebro-geometric problems into purely combinatorial ones. This expository paper gives an introduction to these new techniques with a special emphasis on the recent applications to problems in enumerative geometry.
We study lifts of tropical bitangents to the tropicalization of a given complex algebraic curve together with their lifting multiplicities. Using this characterization, we show that generically all the seven bitangents of a smooth tropical plane quartic lift in sets of four to algebraic bitangents. We do this constructively, i.e. we give solutions for the initial terms of the coefficients of the bitangent lines. This is a step towards a tropical proof that a general smooth quartic admits 28 bitangent lines. The methods are also appropriate to count real bitangents, however the conditions to de…
In this paper we construct a tropical moduli space parametrizing roots of divisors on tropical curves. We study the relation between this space and the skeleton of Jarvis moduli space of nets of limit roots on stable curves. We show that the combinatorics of the moduli space of tropical roots is governed by the poset of flows, a poset parametrizing certain flows on graphs.
We show that the non-Archimedean skeleton of the $d$-th symmetric power of a smooth projective algebraic curve $X$ is naturally isomorphic to the $d$-th symmetric power of the tropical curve that arises as the non-Archimedean skeleton of $X$. The retraction to the skeleton is precisely the specialization map for divisors. Moreover, we show that the process of tropicalization naturally commutes with the diagonal morphisms and the Abel-Jacobi map and we exhibit a faithful tropicalization for symmetric powers of curves. Finally, we prove a version of the Bieri-Groves Theorem that allows us, under…
Tropicalization is a procedure that takes subvarieties of an algebraic torus to balanced weighted rational complexes in space. In this paper, we study the tropicalizations of curves in surfaces in 3-space. These are balanced rational weighted graphs in tropical surfaces. Specifically, we study the `lifting' problem: given a graph in a tropical surface, can one find a corresponding algebraic curve in a surface? We develop specific combinatorial obstructions to lifting a graph by reducing the problem to the question of whether or not one can factor a polynomial with particular support in the cha…
We study algebraic and combinatorial aspects of (classical) projections of $m$-dimensional tropical varieties onto $(m+1)$-dimensional planes. Building upon the work of Sturmfels, Tevelev, and Yu on tropical elimination as well as the work of the authors on projection-based tropical bases, we characterize algebraic properties of the relevant ideals and provide a characterization of the dual subdivision (as a subdivision of a fiber polytope). This dual subdivision naturally leads to the issue of self-intersections of a tropical variety under projections. For the case of curves, we provide some …
We exploit three classical characterizations of smooth genus two curves to study their tropical and analytic counterparts. First, we provide a combinatorial rule to determine the dual graph of each algebraic curve and the metric structure on the associated minimal Berkovich skeleton. Our main tool is the description of genus two curves via hyperelliptic covers of P^1 with six branch points. Given the valuations of these six points and their differences, our algorithm provides an explicit harmonic 2-to-1 map to a metric tree on six leaves. Second, we use tropical modifications to produce a fait…
This text is an introduction to algebraic enumerative geometry and to applications of tropical geometry to classical geometry, based on a course given during the X-UPS mathematical days, 2008 May 14th and 15th. The aim of this text is to be understandable by a first year master student.
On tropical geometry in $\rr^2$, the divisor and the Jacobian variety are defined in analogy to algebraic geometry. For study of these objects, it is important to think of the `bunch' of a tropical curve. In this paper, we will show that if the bunch is a bouquet, then the Jacobian is a higher-dimensional torus.
We construct the moduli space for equivalence classes of n-pointed tropical curves of genus g, together with its compactification given by weighted tropical curves, and establish some of its basic topological properties. We compare it to the moduli spaces of smooth and stable algebraic curves, from the combinatorial, the topological, and the Teichmüller point of view. The paper is written in an expository style, and it generalizes some results contained in sections 4-6 of arXiv:1001.2815v3.
In recent years a series of remarkable advances in tropical geometry and in non-archimedean geometry have brought new insights to the moduli theory of algebraic curves and their Jacobians. The goal of this survey, an expanded version of my talks at the 2015 AMS symposium in algebraic geometry and at AGNES 2016, is to present some of the results in this area.
We prove that Viro's patchworking produces real algebraic curves with the maximal number of real inflection points. In particular this implies that maximally inflected real algebraic $M$-curves realize many isotopy types. The strategy we adopt in this paper is tropical: we study tropical limits of inflection points of classical plane algebraic curves. The main tropical tool we use to understand these tropical inflection points are tropical modifications.
In the 1990's, Itenberg and Haas studied the relations between combinatorial data in Viro's patchworking and the topology of the resulting non-singular real algebraic curves in the projective plane. Using recent results from Renaudineau and Shaw on real algebraic curves near the non-singular tropical limit, we continue the study of Itenberg and Haas inside any non-singular projective toric surface. We give new Haas' like criteria for patchworking non-singular real algebraic curves with prescribed number of connected components, in terms of twisted edges on a non-singular tropical curve. We the…
This is mostly* a non-technical exposition of the joint work arXiv:1212.0373 with Caporaso and Payne. Topics include: Moduli of Riemann surfaces / algebraic curves; Deligne-Mumford compactification; Dual graphs and the combinatorics of the compactification; Tropical curves and their moduli; Non-archimedean geometry and comparison. * Maybe the last section is technical.
We study moduli spaces of rational weighted stable tropical curves, and their connections with the classical Hassett spaces. Given a vector w of weights, the moduli space of tropical w-stable curves can be given the structure of a balanced fan if and only if w has only heavy and light entries. In this case, we can express the moduli space as the Bergman fan of a graphic matroid. Furthermore, we realize the tropical moduli space as a geometric tropicalization, and as a Berkovich skeleton, of the classical moduli space. This builds on previous work of Tevelev, Gibney--Maclagan, and Abramovich--C…
The Cox ring of a del Pezzo surface of degree 3 has a distinguished set of 27 minimal generators. We investigate conditions under which the initial forms of these generators generate the initial algebra of this Cox ring. Sturmfels and Xu provide a classification in the case of degree 4 del Pezzo surfaces by subdividing the tropical Grassmannian $\operatorname{TGr}(2,\mathbb{Q}^5)$. After providing the necessary background on Cox-Nagata rings and Khovanskii bases, we review the classification obtained by Sturmfels and Xu. Then we describe our classification problem in the degree 3 case and its …
We study the tropicalizations of analytic subvarieties of normal toric varieties over complete non-archimedean valuation fields. We show that a Zariski closed analytic subvariety of a normal toric variety is algebraic if its tropicalization is a finite union of polyhedra. Previously, the converse direction was known by the theorem of Bieri and Groves. Over the field of complex numbers, Madani, L. Nisse, and M. Nisse proved similar results for analytic subvarieties of tori.
We introduce tropical dual numbers as an extension of tropical semiring. By this innovation, one can work with honest ideals, instead of congruences, and recover the Euclidean topology on affine tropical spaces similar to Zariski's approach in classical algebraic geometry. The bend loci of an ideal over tropical dual numbers coincides with the bend loci of a congruence over tropical semiring and this enables tropical dual numbers to serve as an algebraic structure for tropical geometry. Tropical Zariski topology on affine tropical spaces whose closed sets are non-linear loci of ideals over tro…
The tropical semifield, i.e., the real numbers enhanced by the operations of addition and maximum, serves as a base of tropical mathematics. Addition is an abelian group operation, whereas the maximum defines an idempotent semigroup structure. We address the question of the geometry of idempotent semigroups, in particular, tropical algebraic sets carrying the structure of a commutative idempotent semigroup. We show that commutative idempotent semigroups are contractible, that systems of tropical polynomials, formed from univariate monomials, define subsemigroups with respect to coordinate-wise…
We describe the stabilizers of points in the Bruhat-Tits building of the group SL with tropical geometry. There are several compactifications of this building associated to algebraic representations of SL. We show that the fans used to compactify apartments in this theory are given by tropical Schur polynomials.
The notion of geometric construction is introduced. This notion allows to compare incidence configurations in the algebraic and tropical plane. We provide an algorithm such that, given a tropical instance of a geometric construction, it computes sufficient conditions to have an algebraic counterpart related by tropicalization. We also provide sufficient conditions in a geometric construction to ensure that the algebraic counterpart always exists. Geometric constructions are applied to transfer classical theorems to the tropical framework, we provide a notion of incidence theorems and prove sev…
Tropical Differential Algebraic Geometry considers difficult or even intractable problems in Differential Equations and tries to extract information on their solutions from a restricted structure of the input. The Fundamental Theorem of Tropical Differential Algebraic Geometry states that the support of solutions of systems of ordinary differential equations with formal power series coefficients over an uncountable algebraically closed field of characteristic zero can be obtained by solving a so-called tropicalized differential system. Tropicalized differential equations work on a completely d…
Tropicalization is a procedure for associating a polyhedral complex in Euclidean space to a subvariety of an algebraic torus. We study the question of which graphs arise from tropicalizing algebraic curves. By using Baker's specialization of linear systems from curves to graphs, we are able to give a necessary condition for a balanced weighted graph to be the tropicalization of a curve. Our condition reproduces a generalization of Speyer's well-spacedness condition and also gives new conditions. In addition, it suggests a new combinatorial structure on tropicalizations of algebraic curves.
The Ceresa cycle is an algebraic cycle attached to a smooth algebraic curve with a marked point, which is trivial when the curve is hyperelliptic with a marked Weierstrass point. The image of the Ceresa cycle under a certain cycle class map provides a class in étale cohomology called the Ceresa class. Describing the Ceresa class explicitly for non-hyperelliptic curves is in general not easy. We present a "combinatorialization" of this problem, explaining how to define a Ceresa class for a tropical algebraic curve, and also for a topological surface endowed with a multiset of commuting Dehn twi…
Given a tropical divisor $D$ in the intersection of two tropical plane curves, we study when it can be realized as the tropicalization of the intersection of two algebraic curves, and give a sufficient condition. We show that under a certain condition involving a graph determined by these tropical curves, we can algorithmically find algebraic curves such that the tropicalization of their intersection is $D$.
Complex algebraic varieties become easy piecewise-linear objects after passing to the so-called tropical limit. Geometry of these limiting objects is known as tropical geometry. In this short survey we take a look at motivation and intuition behind this limit and consider a few simple examples of correspondence principle between classical and tropical geometries.
We define a new algebraic invariant of a graph $G$ called the Ceresa-Zharkov class and show that it is trivial if and only if $G$ is of hyperelliptic type, equivalently, $G$ does not have as a minor the complete graph on 4 vertices or the loop of 3 loops. After choosing edge-lengths, this class specializes to an algebraic invariant of a tropical curve with underlying graph $G$ that is closely related to the Ceresa cycle for an algebraic curve defined over $\mathbb{C}(\!(t)\!)$.
We propose a definition of tropical linear series that isolates some of the essential combinatorial properties of tropicalizations of not-necessarily-complete linear series on algebraic curves. The definition combines the Baker-Norine notion of rank with the notion of tropical independence and has the property that the restriction of a tropical linear series of rank r to a connected subgraph is a tropical linear series of rank r. We show that tropical linear series of rank 1 are finitely generated as tropical modules and state a number of open problems related to algebraic, combinatorial, and …
This survey consists of two parts. Part 1 is devoted to amoebas. These are images of algebraic subvarieties in the complex torus under the logarithmic moment map. The amoebas have essentially piecewise-linear shape if viewed at large. Furthermore, they degenerate to certain piecewise-linear objects called tropical varieties whose behavior is governed by algebraic geometry over the so-called tropical semifield. Geometric aspects of tropical algebraic geometry are the content of Part 2. We pay special attention to tropical curves. Both parts also include relevant applications of the theories. Pa…
These notes outline some basic notions of Tropical Geometry and survey some of its applications for problems in classical (real and complex) geometry. To appear in the Proceedings of the Madrid ICM.
We show that the algebraic invariants multiplicity and depth of a graded ideal in the polynomial ring are closely connected to the fan structure of its generic tropical variety in the constant coefficient case. Generically the multiplicity of the ideal is shown to correspond directly to a natural definition of multiplicity of cones of tropical varieties. Moreover, we can recover information on the depth of the ideal from the fan structure of the generic tropical variety if the depth is known to be greater than 0. In particular, in this case we can see if the ideal is Cohen-Macaulay or almost-C…
Let $I$ be an ideal of the ring of Laurent polynomials $K[x_1^{\pm1},\ldots,x_n^{\pm1}]$ with coefficients in a real-valued field $(K,v)$. The fundamental theorem of tropical algebraic geometry states the equality $\text{trop}(V(I))=V(\text{trop}(I))$ between the tropicalization $\text{trop}(V(I))$ of the closed subscheme $V(I)\subset (K^*)^n$ and the tropical variety $V(\text{trop}(I))$ associated to the tropicalization of the ideal $\text{trop}(I)$. In this work we prove an analogous result for a differential ideal $G$ of the ring of differential polynomials $K[[t]]\{x_1,\ldots,x_n\}$, where…