Interactions of Classical and Numerical Algebraic Geometry

Book excerpt: This volume contains the proceedings of the conference on Interactions of Classical and Numerical Algebraic Geometry, held May 22-24, 2008, at the University of Notre Dame, in honor of the achievements of Professor Andrew J. Sommese. While classical algebraic geometry has been studied for hundreds of years, numerical algebraic geometry has only recently been developed. Due in large part to the work of Andrew Sommese and his collaborators, the intersection of these two fields is now ripe for rapid advancement. The primary goal of both the conference and this volume is to foster the interaction between researchers interested in classical algebraic geometry and those interested in numerical methods. The topics in this book include (but are not limited to) various new results in complex algebraic geometry, a primer on Seshadri constants, analyses and presentations of existing and novel numerical homotopy methods for solving polynomial systems, a numerical method for computing the dimensions of the cohomology of twists of ideal sheaves, and the application of algebraic methods in kinematics and phylogenetics.