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OP-00215 Solution claimed

Degrees of the two Rayleigh–Ritz discriminant parts for rational normal curves

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For $d \ge 2$ let $$C_d = \{[a^d : a^{d-1}b : \cdots : b^d] : [a : b] \in \mathbb{P}^1\} \subset \mathbb{P}^d$$ be the rational normal curve, in this unweighted embedding. For a complex symmetric matrix $H$ of order $d + 1$, let $\rho_H(z) = z^{\mathsf T} H z / z^{\mathsf T} z$ on the part of $C_d$ where $z^{\mathsf T} z \ne 0$; transposes do not conjugate. Let $\mathcal{R}$ be the Zariski closure in $C_d \times \mathbb{P}(\operatorname{Sym}_{d+1}(\mathbb{C}))$ of the pairs $([z], [H])$ for which $[z]$ is a critical point of $\rho_H$ on $C_d$, choose homogeneous generators $g_i$ of its ideal, and let $$\mathcal{B} = \{([z], [H]) \in \mathcal{R} : \operatorname{rank}(\partial g_i / \partial z_j) \le d - 1\}.$$ With $Q = \{([z], [H]) : z^{\mathsf T} z = 0\}$ and $\pi$ the projection to the matrix factor, the isotropic and nonisotropic parts of the Rayleigh–Ritz discriminant are $$\Sigma_{\mathrm{iso}} = \pi(\mathcal{B} \cap Q), \qquad \Sigma_{\mathrm{noniso}} = \overline{\pi(\mathcal{B} \setminus Q)},$$ the closure being Zariski. Degrees are those of the reduced algebraic sets, all components included. Borovik, Friedman, Hoşten and Pfeffer showed that the whole discriminant $\Sigma_{\mathrm{iso}} \cup \Sigma_{\mathrm{noniso}}$ is the zero set of the discriminant of a binary form of degree $2(2d - 1)$ whose coefficients are linear in $H$, a polynomial of degree $2(4d - 3)$. For $d = 2$ and $d = 3$ their symbolic computations give the degrees below, and they report numerical checks for $d \le 10$.

Problem. Are $\Sigma_{\mathrm{noniso}}$ and $\Sigma_{\mathrm{iso}}$ hypersurfaces with $$\deg \Sigma_{\mathrm{noniso}} = 6(d - 1) \quad \text{and} \quad \deg \Sigma_{\mathrm{iso}} = 2d$$ for every $d \ge 2$?

Source: Borovik, Friedman, Hoşten and Pfeffer (2025), Conjecture 3.14 of arXiv:2512.06939v2 (Conjecture 5.14 in v1).

Imported from github.com/ajt60gaibb/OpenProblemsInNLA.

Classification

Primary
AG — Algebraic Geometry
Secondary
NA
Keywords
discriminants, OpenProblemsInNLA, rational normal curves, Rayleigh quotients
Literature checked
Oct. 8, 2026 by clemens-admin

References

@misc{borovik2025,
  author        = {Borovik, Viktoriia and Friedman, Hannah and Ho{\c{s}}ten, Serkan and Pfeffer, Max},
  title         = {Numerical Algebraic Geometry for Energy Computations on Tensor Train Varieties},
  year          = {2025},
  eprint        = {2512.06939},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
}
@misc{openproblemsinnla-tr26,
  author       = {Townsend, Alex},
  title        = {{TR-26}: Degrees of the two Rayleigh–Ritz discriminant parts for rational normal curves},
  howpublished = {Open Problems in Numerical Linear Algebra, GitHub repository},
  year         = {2026},
  url          = {https://github.com/ajt60gaibb/OpenProblemsInNLA/blob/main/tensor-computations/TR-26/README.md},
  note         = {Read at commit eb7c9d6, 2026-10-07},
}

Resolution claims

Matthew J. Colbrook

For the standard unweighted rational normal curve of degree $d \ge 2$, we prove that the reduced isotropic part of its Rayleigh–Ritz discriminant has degree $2d$ and its reduced nonisotropic part has degree $6(d-1)$. The argument identifies the critical correspondence with a binary Wronskian, establishes the irreducibility of the nonisotropic image, and proves that every component occurs with multiplicity one …

Full resolution · not verified · fidelity not established · posted on GitHub 11 Sep 2026

Status history

WhenChangeByReason
2026-10-08 Needs verification → Solution claimed clemens-admin Listed with the record of its solution, unreviewed.

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OP-00215, "Degrees of the two Rayleigh–Ritz discriminant parts for rational normal curves", clopen.solutions.