2.3.2 Rings and standard bases

In order to compute with objects such as ideals, matrices, modules, and polynomial vectors, a ring has to be defined first.

ring r = 0,(x,y,z),dp;

The definition of a ring consists of three parts: the first part determines the ground field, the second part determines the names of the ring variables, and the third part determines the monomial ordering to be used. Thus, the above example declares a polynomial ring called r with a ground field of characteristic (i.e., the rational numbers) and ring variables called x, y, and z. The dp at the end determines that the degree reverse lexicographical ordering will be used.

Other ring declarations:

ring r1=32003,(x,y,z),dp;

characteristic 32003, variables x, y, and z and ordering dp.

ring r2=32003,(a,b,c,d),lp;

characteristic 32003, variable names a, b, c, d and lexicographical ordering.

ring r3=7,(x(1..10)),ds;

characteristic 7, variable names x(1),...,x(10), negative degree reverse lexicographical ordering (ds).

ring r4=(0,a),(mu,nu),lp;

transcendental extension of by , variable names mu and nu, lexicographical ordering.

ring r5=real,(a,b),lp;

floating point numbers (single machine precision), variable names a and b.

ring r6=(real,50),(a,b),lp;

floating point numbers with precision extended to 50 digits, variable names a and b.

ring r7=(complex,50,i),(a,b),lp;

complex floating point numbers with precision extended to 50 digits and imaginary unit i, variable names a and b.

ring r8=integer,(a,b),lp;

the ring of integers (see Coefficient rings), variable names a and b.

ring r9=(integer, 60),(a,b),lp;

the ring of integers modulo 60 (see Coefficient rings), variable names a and b.

ring r10=(integer, 2, 10),(a,b),lp;

the ring of integers modulo 2^10 (see Coefficient rings), variable names a and b.

Typing the name of a ring prints its definition. The example below shows that the default ring in SINGULAR is with degree reverse lexicographical ordering:

ring r11; r11; ==> // characteristic : 32003 ==> // number of vars : 3 ==> // block 1 : ordering dp ==> // : names x y z ==> // block 2 : ordering C

Defining a ring makes this ring the current active basering, so each ring definition above switches to a new basering. The concept of rings in SINGULAR is discussed in detail in Rings and orderings.

The basering is now r11. Since we want to calculate in the ring r, which we defined first, we need to switch back to it. This can be done using the function setring:

setring r;

Once a ring is active, we can define polynomials. A monomial, say may be entered in two ways: either using the power operator ^, writing x^3, or in short-hand notation without operator, writing x3. Note that the short-hand notation is forbidden if a name of the ring variable(s) consists of more than one character(see Miscellaneous oddities for details). Note, that SINGULAR always expands brackets and automatically sorts the terms with respect to the monomial ordering of the basering.

poly f = x3+y3+(x-y)*x2y2+z2; f; ==> x3y2-x2y3+x3+y3+z2

The command size retrieves in general the number of entries in an object. In particular, for polynomials, size returns the number of monomials.

size(f); ==> 5

A natural question is to ask if a point, e.g., (x,y,z)=(1,2,0), lies on the variety defined by the polynomials f and g. For this we define an ideal generated by both polynomials, substitute the coordinates of the point for the ring variables, and check if the result is zero:

poly g = f^2 *(2x-y); ideal I = f,g; ideal J = subst(I,var(1),1); J = subst(J,var(2),2); J = subst(J,var(3),0); J; ==> J[1]=5 ==> J[2]=0

Since the result is not zero, the point (1,2,0) does not lie on the variety V(f,g).

Another question is to decide whether some function vanishes on a variety, or in algebraic terms, if a polynomial is contained in a given ideal. For this we calculate a standard basis using the command groebner and afterwards reduce the polynomial with respect to this standard basis.

ideal sI = groebner(f); reduce(g,sI); ==> 0

As the result is 0 the polynomial g belongs to the ideal defined by f.

The function groebner, like many other functions in SINGULAR, prints a protocol during calculations, if desired. The command option(prot); enables protocolling whereas option(noprot); turns it off. option, explains the meaning of the different symbols printed during calculations.

The command kbase calculates a basis of the polynomial ring modulo an ideal, if the quotient ring is finite dimensional. As an example we calculate the Milnor number of a hypersurface singularity in the global and local case. This is the vector space dimension of the polynomial ring modulo the Jacobian ideal in the global case resp. of the power series ring modulo the Jacobian ideal in the local case. See Critical points, for a detailed explanation.

The Jacobian ideal is obtained with the command jacob.

ideal J = jacob(f); ==> // ** redefining J ** J; ==> J[1]=3x2y2-2xy3+3x2 ==> J[2]=2x3y-3x2y2+3y2 ==> J[3]=2z

SINGULAR prints the line // ** redefining J **. This indicates that we had previously defined a variable with name J of type ideal (see above).

To obtain a representing set of the quotient vector space we first calculate a standard basis, and then apply the function kbase to this standard basis.

J = groebner(J); ideal K = kbase(J); K; ==> K[1]=y4 ==> K[2]=xy3 ==> K[3]=y3 ==> K[4]=xy2 ==> K[5]=y2 ==> K[6]=x2y ==> K[7]=xy ==> K[8]=y ==> K[9]=x3 ==> K[10]=x2 ==> K[11]=x ==> K[12]=1

Then

size(K); ==> 12

gives the desired vector space dimension .As in SINGULAR the functions may take the input directly from earlier calculations, the whole sequence of commands may be written in one single statement.

size(kbase(groebner(jacob(f)))); ==> 12

When we are not interested in a basis of the quotient vector space, but only in the resulting dimension we may even use the command vdim and write:

vdim(groebner(jacob(f))); ==> 12