# Sparse polynomial equations and other enumerative problems whose Galois   groups are wreath products

**Authors:** Alexander Esterov, Lionel Lang

arXiv: 1812.07912 · 2020-03-03

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a new technique called inductive connectivity to analyze Galois groups of polynomial equations, proving they often form wreath products and exploring the complexity of these groups in enumerative geometry.

## Contribution

It develops a novel method to establish the structure of Galois groups as wreath products in polynomial systems, extending understanding in enumerative geometry and Galois theory.

## Key findings

- Galois groups of certain polynomial systems are wreath products
- The technique proves the expected wreath product structure in many cases
- The structure of Galois groups can be more complex than expected

## Abstract

We introduce a new technique to prove connectivity of subsets of covering spaces (so called inductive connectivity), and apply it to Galois theory of problems of enumerative geometry. As a model example, consider the problem of permuting the roots of a complex polynomial $f(x) = c_0 + c_1 x^{d_1} + \ldots + c_k x^{d_k}$ by varying its coefficients. If the GCD of the exponents is $d$, then the polynomial admits the change of variable $y=x^d$, and its roots split into necklaces of length $d$. At best we can expect to permute these necklaces, i.e. the Galois group of $f$ equals the wreath product of the symmetric group over $d_k/d$ elements and $\mathbb{Z}/d\mathbb{Z}$. The aim of this paper is to prove this equality and study its multidimensional generalization: we show that the Galois group of a general system of polynomial equations equals the expected wreath product for a large class of systems, but in general this expected equality fails, making the problem of describing such Galois groups unexpectedly rich.

## Full text

_Full body text omitted from this summary view._ Fetch the complete paper as Markdown: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1812.07912/full.md

## Figures

1 figure with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1812.07912/full.md

## References

29 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1812.07912/full.md

---
Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1812.07912