This is a foundational paper in tropical linear algebra, which is linear algebra over the min-plus semiring. We introduce and compare three natural definitions of the rank of a matrix, called the Barvinok rank, the Kapranov rank and the tropical rank. We demonstrate how these notions arise naturally in polyhedral and algebraic geometry, and we show that they differ in general. Realizability of matroids plays a crucial role here. Connections to optimization are also discussed.
We construct a space classifying divisor classes of a fixed degree on all tropical curves of a fixed combinatorial type and show that the function taking a divisor class to its rank is upper semicontinuous. We extend the definition of the Brill-Noether rank of a metric graph to tropical curves and use the upper semicontinuity of the rank function on divisors to show that the Brill-Noether rank varies upper semicontinuously in families of tropical curves. Furthermore, we present a specialization lemma relating the Brill-Noether rank of a tropical curve with the dimension of the Brill-Noether lo…
This paper proves the $r \times r$ minors of an $n \times n$ symmetric matrix of indeterminates are a tropical basis when $r = 2$, $r = 3$, or $r = n$, and are not when $4 < r < n$ or $r = 4, n > 12$. In the process, it introduces two new notions of rank for symmetric matrices coming from tropical geometry, the symmetric tropical and the symmetric Kapranov rank, which are the symmetric versions of their standard counterparts defined by Develin, Santos, and Sturmfels.
We investigate, using purely combinatorial methods, structural and algorithmic properties of linear equivalence classes of divisors on tropical curves. In particular, an elementary proof of the Riemann-Roch theorem for tropical curves, similar to the recent proof of the Riemann-Roch theorem for graphs by Baker and Norine, is presented. In addition, a conjecture of Baker asserting that the rank of a divisor D on a (non-metric) graph is equal to the rank of D on the corresponding metric graph is confirmed, and an algorithm for computing the rank of a divisor on a tropical curve is constructed.
This paper introduces a new structure of commutative semiring, generalizing the tropical semiring, and having an arithmetic that modifies the standard tropical operations, i.e. summation and maximum. Although our framework is combinatorial, notions of regularity and invertibility arise naturally for matrices over this semiring; we show that a tropical matrix is invertible if and only if it is regular.
We initiate the study of positive-tropical generators as positive analogues of the concept of tropical bases. Applying this to the tropicalization of determinantal varieties, we develop criteria for characterizing their positive part. We focus on the study of low-rank matrices, in particular matrices of rank 2 and 3. Moreover, in the case square-matrices of corank 1, we fully classify the signed tropicalization of the determinantal variety, even beyond the positive part.
We show that determining Kapranov rank of tropical matrices is not only NP-hard over any infinite field but also if solving Diophantine equations over the rational numbers is undecidable, then determining Kapranov rank over the rational numbers is undecidable. We prove that Kapranov rank of tropical matrices is not bounded in terms of tropical rank, answering a question of Develin, Santos, and Sturmfels.
In this paper we further develop the theory of matrices over the extended tropical semiring. Introducing a notion of tropical linear dependence allows for a natural definition of matrix rank in a sense that coincides with the notions of tropical regularity and invertibility.
We continue to study the rank functions of tropical matrices. In this paper, we explain how to reduce the computation of ranks for matrices over the `supertropical semifield' to the standard tropical case. Using a counting approach, we prove the existence of a $01$-matrix with many ones and without large all-one submatrices, and we put our results together and construct an $n\times n$ matrix with tropical rank $o(n^{0.5+\varepsilon})$ and Kapranov rank $n-o(n)$.
We provide an example of a 6-by-6 matrix with tropical rank equal to 4 and Kapranov rank equal to 5. This answers a question asked by M. Chan, A. Jensen, and E. Rubei.
We introduce and study three different notions of tropical rank for symmetric and dissimilarity matrices in terms of minimal decompositions into rank 1 symmetric matrices, star tree matrices, and tree matrices. Our results provide a close study of the tropical secant sets of certain nice tropical varieties, including the tropical Grassmannian. In particular, we determine the dimension of each secant set, the convex hull of the variety, and in most cases, the smallest secant set which is equal to the convex hull.
In this note, we generalize the technique developed in [13] and prove that every 5xn matrix of tropical rank at most 3 has Kapranov rank at most 3, for the ground field that contains at least 4 elements. For the ground field either F_2 or F_3, we construct an example of a 5x5 matrix with tropical rank 3 and Kapranov rank 4.
We consider a variant of metrised graphs where the edge lengths take values in a commutative monoid, as a higher-rank generalisation of the notion of a tropical curve. Divisorial gonality, which Baker and Norine defined on combinatorial graphs in terms of a chip firing game, is extended to these monoid-metrised graphs. We define geometric gonality of a monoid-metrised graph as the minimal degree of a horizontally conformal, non-degenerate morphism onto an monoid-metrised tree, and prove that geometric gonality is an upper bound for divisorial gonality in the monoid-metrised case. We also show …
We prove the conjecture that, for any $n$, the monoid of all $n \times n$ tropical matrices satisfies nontrivial semigroup identities. To this end, we prove that the factor rank of a large enough power of a tropical matrix does not exceed the tropical rank of the original matrix.
We compute the space of 5x5 matrices of tropical rank at most 3 and show that it coincides with the space of 5x5 matrices of Kapranov rank at most 3, that is, the space of five labeled coplanar points in TP4. We then prove that the Kapranov rank of every 5xn matrix equals its tropical rank; equivalently, that the 4x4 minors of a 5xn matrix of variables form a tropical basis. This answers a question asked by Develin, Santos, and Sturmfels.
This paper proves that when the $r \times r$ minors of an $m \times n$ matrix of indeterminates are not a tropical basis then the tropical prevariety has greater dimension than the tropical variety. It proves the same for the $r \times r$ minors of an $n \times n$ symmetric matrix of indeterminates when r > 4.
The tropical Stiefel map associates to a tropical matrix A its tropical Pluecker vector of maximal minors, and thus a tropical linear space L(A). We call the L(A)s obtained in this way Stiefel tropical linear spaces. We prove that they are dual to certain matroid subdivisions of polytopes of transversal matroids, and we relate their combinatorics to a canonically associated tropical hyperplane arrangement. We also explore a broad connection with the secondary fan of the Newton polytope of the product of all maximal minors of a matrix. In addition, we investigate the natural parametrization of …
Given a curve defined over an algebraically closed field which is complete with respect to a nontrivial valuation, we study its tropical Jacobian. This is done by first tropicalizing the curve, and then computing the Jacobian of the resulting weighted metric graph. In general, it is not known how to find the abstract tropicalization of a curve defined by polynomial equations, since an embedded tropicalization may not be faithful, and there is no known algorithm for carrying out semistable reduction in practice. We solve this problem in the case of hyperelliptic curves by studying admissible co…
A tropical matrix is a matrix defined over the max-plus semiring. For such matrices, there exist several non-coinciding notions of rank: the row rank, the column rank, the Schein/Barvinok rank, the Kapranov rank, or the tropical rank, among others. In the present paper, we show that there exists a natural notion of ultimate rank for the powers of a tropical matrix, which does not depend on the underlying notion of rank. Furthermore, we provide a simple formula for the ultimate rank of a matrix which can therefore be computed in polynomial time. Then we turn our attention to finitely generated …
Matrix factorization problems over various semirings naturally arise in different contexts of modern pure and applied mathematics. These problems are very hard in general and cause computational difficulties in applications. We give a survey of what is known on the algorithmic complexity of Boolean, fuzzy, tropical, nonnegative, and positive semidefinite factorizations, and we examine the behavior of the corresponding rank functions on matrices of bounded bandwidth. We show that the Boolean, fuzzy, and tropical versions of matrix factorization become polynomial time solvable when restricted to…
Given a divisor $D$ on a tropical curve $Γ$, we show that reduced divisors define an integral affine map from the tropical curve to the complete linear system $|D|$. This is done by providing an explicit description of the behavior of reduced divisors under infinitesimal modifications of the base point. We consider the cases where the reduced-divisor map defines an embedding of the curve into the linear system, and in this way, classify all the tropical curves with a very ample canonical divisor. As an application of the reduced-divisor map, we show the existence of Weierstrass points on tropi…
We introduce and study polystable divisors on a tropical curve, which are the tropical analogue of polystable torsion-free rank-1 sheaves on a nodal curve. We construct a universal tropical Jacobian over the moduli space of tropical curves of genus $g$. This space parametrizes equivalence classes of tropical curves of genus $g$ together with a $μ$-polystable divisor, and can be seen as a tropical counterpart of Caporaso universal Picard scheme. We describe polyhedral decompositions of the Jacobian of a tropical curve via polystable divisors, relating them with other known polyhedral decomposit…
The aim of this paper is to introduce a certain number of tools and results suitable for the study of valuations of higher rank on function fields of algebraic varieties. This will be based on a study of higher rank quasi-monomial valuations taking values in the lexicographically ordered group R^k. We prove a duality theorem that gives a geometric realization of higher rank quasi-monomial valuations as tangent cones of dual cone complexes. Using this duality, we provide an analytic description of quasi-monomial valuations as multi-directional derivative operators on tropical functions. We cons…
The space T_{d,n} of n tropically collinear points in a fixed tropical projective space TP^{d-1} is equivalent to the tropicalization of the determinantal variety of matrices of rank at most 2, which consists of real d x n matrices of tropical or Kapranov rank at most 2, modulo projective equivalence of columns. We show that it is equal to the image of the moduli space M_{0,n}(TP^{d-1},1) of n-marked tropical lines in TP^{d-1} under the evaluation map. Thus we derive a natural simplicial fan structure for T_{d,n} using a simplicial fan structure of M_{0,n}(TP^{d-1},1) which coincides with that…
The tropical arithmetic operations on $\mathbb{R}$ are defined by $a\oplus b=\min\{a,b\}$ and $a\otimes b=a+b$. Let $A$ be a tropical matrix and $k$ a positive integer, the problem of Tropical Matrix Factorization (TMF) asks whether there exist tropical matrices $B\in\mathbb{R}^{m\times k}$ and $C\in\mathbb{R}^{k\times n}$ satisfying $B\otimes C=A$. We show that no algorithm for TMF is likely to work in polynomial time for every fixed $k$, thus resolving a problem proposed by Barvinok in 1993.
Given a tropical linear space $L \subseteq \mathbb{T}^n$ and a matrix $A \in \mathbb{T}^{m \times n}$, the image $AL$ of $L$ under $A$ is typically not a tropical linear space. We introduce a tropical linear space $\mathrm{tropim}_A(L)$, the tropical image, containing $AL$. We show under mild hypotheses that $\mathrm{tropim}_A(L)$ is realizable if $L$ is and apply the tropical image to construct the stable sum of two tropical linear spaces without a disjoint pair of bases.
We investigate a canonical extension of a conventional combinatorial notion of reduced divisors to a notion of tropical projections, which can be defined as the unique minimizers of the so-called $B$-pseudonorms with respect to compact tropical convex sets. In this paper, we build the foundation of a theory of idempotent analysis using tropical projections and obtain a series of subsequent results, e.g. tropical retracts, construction of compact tropical convex sets and a set-theoretical characterization of tropical weak independence. In particular, we prove a tropical version of Mazur's Theor…
We investigate different notions of linear independence and of matrix rank that are relevant for max-plus or tropical semirings. The factor rank and tropical rank have already received attention, we compare them with the ranks defined in terms of signed tropical determinants or arising from a notion of linear independence introduced by Gondran and Minoux. To do this, we revisit the symmetrization of the max-plus algebra, establishing properties of linear spaces, linear systems, and matrices over the symmetrized max-plus algebra. In parallel we develop some general technique to prove combinator…
This paper uses the combinatorics of Young tableaux to prove the plactic monoid of infinite rank does not satisfy a non-trivial identity, by showing that the plactic monoid of rank $n$ cannot satisfy a non-trivial identity of length less than or equal to $n$. A new identity is then proven to hold for the monoid of $n \times n$ upper-triangular tropical matrices. Finally, a straightforward embedding is exhibited of the plactic monoid of rank $3$ into the direct product of two copies of the monoid of $3\times 3$ upper-triangular tropical matrices, giving a new proof that the plactic monoid of ra…
We show that the r-by-r minors of a d-by-n matrix of variables form a tropical basis of the ideal they generate if and only if r<4, or r=min(d,n), or else r=4 and min(d,n)<7. This answers a question asked by M. Chan, A. Jensen, and E. Rubei.
This article presents an attempt to extend the CSR decomposition, previously introduced for tropical matrix powers, to tropical inhomogeneous matrix products. The CSR terms for inhomogeneous matrix products are introduced, then a case is described where an inhomogeneous product admits such CSR decomposition after some length and give a bound on this length. In the last part of the paper a number of counterexamples are presented to show that inhomogeneous products do not admit CSR decomposition under more general conditions.
We exhibit a faithful representation of the plactic monoid of every finite rank as a monoid of upper triangular matrices over the tropical semiring. This answers a question first posed by Izhakian and subsequently studied by several authors. A consequence is a proof of a conjecture of Kubat and Okniński that every plactic monoid of finite rank satisfies a non-trivial semigroup identity. In the converse direction, we show that every identity satisfied by the plactic monoid of rank $n$ is satisfied by the monoid of $n \times n$ upper triangular tropical matrices. In particular this implies that …
We study the combinatorics of tropical hyperplane arrangements, and their relationship to (classical) hyperplane face monoids. We show that the refinement operation on the faces of a tropical hyperplane arrangement, introduced by Ardila and Develin in their definition of a tropical oriented matroid, induces an action of the hyperplane face monoid of the classical braid arrangement on the arrangement, and hence on a number of interesting related structures. Along the way, we introduce a new characterization of the types (in the sense of Develin and Sturmfels) of points with respect to a tropica…
We study the tropicalization of the cone of positive semidefinite matrices over the ordered field of real Puiseux series. The tropical PSD matrices form the normal cone of the Newton polytope of the symmetric determinant at the vertex corresponding to the product of diagonal entries. We find generators and defining inequalities of the cone. The PSD tropical quadratic forms are those that induce the trivial subdivision on the standard simplex dilated by two. We also show that the tropical PSD cone is the tropical convex hull of the set of symmetric matrices of tropical rank one and that every t…
The tropical semiring (R, min, +) has enjoyed a recent renaissance, owing to its connections to mathematical biology as well as optimization and algebraic geometry. In this paper, we investigate the space of labeled n-point configurations lying on a tropical line in d-space, which is interpretable as the space of n-species phylogenetic trees. This is equivalent to the space of d by n matrices of tropical rank two, a simplicial complex. We prove that this simplicial complex is shellable for dimension d=3 and compute its homology in this case, conjecturing that this complex is shellable in gener…
Building on the weak CSR approach developed in a previous paper by Merlet, Nowak and Sergeev, we establish new bounds for the periodicity threshold of the powers of a tropical matrix. According to that approach, bounds on the ultimate periodicity threshold take the form of T=max(T_1,T_2), where T_1 is a bound on the time after which the weak CSR expansion starts to hold and T_2 is a bound on the time after which the first CSR term starts to dominate. The new bounds on T_1 and T_2 established in this paper make use of the cyclicity of the associated graph and the (tropical) factor rank of the m…
Connection matrices for graph parameters with values in a field have been introduced by M. Freedman, L. Lov{á}sz and A. Schrijver (2007). Graph parameters with connection matrices of finite rank can be computed in polynomial time on graph classes of bounded tree-width. We introduce join matrices, a generalization of connection matrices, and allow graph parameters to take values in the tropical rings (max-plus algebras) over the real numbers. We show that rank-finiteness of join matrices implies that these graph parameters can be computed in polynomial time on graph classes of bounded clique-wi…
The spinor variety is cut out by the quadratic Wick relations among the principal Pfaffians of an n x n skew-symmetric matrix. Its points correspond to n-dimensional isotropic subspaces of a 2n-dimensional vector space. In this paper we tropicalize this picture, and we develop a combinatorial theory of tropical Wick vectors and tropical linear spaces that are tropically isotropic. We characterize tropical Wick vectors in terms of subdivisions of Delta-matroid polytopes, and we examine to what extent the Wick relations form a tropical basis. Our theory generalizes several results for tropical l…
Let $Γ$ be a compact tropical curve (or metric graph) of genus $g$. Using the theory of tropical theta functions, Mikhalkin and Zharkov proved that there is a canonical effective representative (called a break divisor) for each linear equivalence class of divisors of degree $g$ on $Γ$. We present a new combinatorial proof of the fact that there is a unique break divisor in each equivalence class, establishing in the process an "integral" version of this result which is of independent interest. As an application, we provide a "geometric proof" of (a dual version of) Kirchhoff's celebrated Matri…
We continue the study of matrices over a supertropical algebra, proving the existence of a tangible adjoint of $A$, which provides the unique right (resp. left) quasi-inverse maximal with respect to the right (resp. left) quasi-identity matrix corresponding to $A$; this provides a unique maximal (tangible) solution to supertropical vector equations, via a version of Cramer's rule. We also describe various properties of this tangible adjoint, and use it to compute supertropical eigenvectors, thereby producing an example in which an $n\times n$ matrix has $n$ distinct supertropical eigenvalues b…
Every tropical ideal in the sense of Maclagan-Rincón has an associated tropical variety, a finite polyhedral complex equipped with positive integral weights on its maximal cells. This leads to the realisability question, ubiquitous in tropical geometry, of which weighted polyhedral complexes arise in this manner. Using work of Las Vergnas on the non-existence of tensor products of matroids, we prove that there is no tropical ideal whose variety is the Bergman fan of the direct sum of the Vámos matroid and the uniform matroid of rank two on three elements, and in which all maximal cones have we…
We prove identities on compound matrices in extended tropical semirings. Such identities include analogues to properties of conjugate matrices, powers of matrices and~$\adj(A)\det(A)^{ -1}$, all of which have implications on the eigenvalues of the corresponding matrices. A tropical Sylvester-Franke identity is provided as well.
A biconvex polytope is a classical and tropical convex hull of finitely many points. Given a biconvex polytope, for each vertex of it we construct a directed bigraph and a gammoid so that the collection of base polytopes of those gammoids is a matroid subdivision of the hypersimplex, thereby proving a biconvex polytope arises as a cell of a tropical linear space. Our construction provides manually feasible guidelines for subdividing the hypersimplex into base polytopes, without resorting to computers. We work out the rank-4 case as a demonstration. We also show there is an injection from the v…
In this paper, we investigate tropical secant varieties of ordinary linear spaces. These correspond to the log-limit sets of ordinary toric varieties; we show that their interesting parts are combinatorially isomorphic to a certain natural subcomplex of the complex of regular subdivisions of a corresponding point set, and we display the range of behavior of this object. We also use this characterization to reformulate the question of determining Barvinok rank into a question regarding regular subdivisions of products of simplices.
We show that for all k = 1,...,n the absolute value of the product of the k largest eigenvalues of an n-by-n matrix A is bounded from above by the product of the k largest tropical eigenvalues of the matrix |A| (entrywise absolute value), up to a combinatorial constant depending only on k and on the pattern of the matrix. This generalizes an inequality by Friedland (1986), corresponding to the special case k = 1.
We introduce an idempotent analogue of the exterior algebra for which the theory of tropical linear spaces (and valuated matroids) can be seen in close analogy with the classical Grassmann algebra formalism for linear spaces. The top wedge power of a tropical linear space is its Plucker vector, which we view as a tensor, and a tropical linear space is recovered from its Plucker vector as the kernel of the corresponding wedge multiplication map. We prove that an arbitrary d-tensor satisfies the tropical Plucker relations (valuated exchange axiom) if and only if the d-th wedge power of the kerne…
We exhibit a faithful representation of the stylic monoid of every finite rank as a monoid of upper unitriangular matrices over the tropical semiring. Thus, we show that the stylic monoid of finite rank $n$ generates the pseudovariety $\boldsymbol{\mathcal{J}}_n$, which corresponds to the class of all piecewise testable languages of height $n$, in the framework of Eilenberg's correspondence. From this, we obtain the equational theory of the stylic monoids of finite rank, show that they are finitely based if and only if $n \leq 3$, and that their identity checking problem is decidable in linear…
The map which takes a square matrix to its tropical eigenvalue-eigenvector pair is piecewise linear. We determine the cones of linearity of this map. They are simplicial but they do not form a fan. Motivated by statistical ranking, we also study the restriction of that cone decomposition to the subspace of skew-symmetric matrices.
The objective of this paper is to develop a general algebraic theory of supertropical matrix algebra, extending [11]. Our main results are as follows: * The tropical determinant (i.e., permanent) is multiplicative when all the determinants involved are tangible. * There exists an adjoint matrix $\adj{A}$ such that the matrix $A \adj{A}$ behaves much like the identity matrix (times $|A|$). * Every matrix $A$ is a supertropical root of its Hamilton-Cayley polynomial $f_A$. If these roots are distinct, then $A$ is conjugate (in a certain supertropical sense) to a diagonal matrix. * The tropical d…
