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Optimization and sums of squares modulo an ideal
Student-Run Discrete Math Seminar| Speaker: | Cynthia Vinzant, UC Berkeley |
| Location: | 2112 MSB |
| Start time: | Thu, May 21 2009, 1:10PM |
Working with sums of squares of polynomials modulo an ideal is a common relaxation for the set of polynomials that are nonnegative on its real variety. The geometry of the variety has a large impact on the quality of this relaxation, for example whether or not we need terms of unbounded degree to represent all positive linear polynomials as sums of squares mod our ideal. I'll give a brief introduction to real algebraic geometry and its relation to this problem and semidefinite programming.