Deterministic Polynomial-time Exact-root Computation for Sparse Polynomials with Bounded Total Degree
2026-07-02 • Data Structures and Algorithms
Data Structures and Algorithms
AI summaryⓘ
The authors study how to find the exact root of a multivariable polynomial that can be written as another polynomial raised to a power, focusing on cases where the polynomial has only a few nonzero terms (is sparse). They prove a new upper bound on how many terms the base polynomial can have, based on the sparsity and degrees of the original polynomial. Using this bound, they design a deterministic algorithm that efficiently computes this base polynomial when the total degree is limited. Their algorithm improves on previous methods by running in polynomial time under these conditions.
sparse polynomialmultivariate polynomialexact rootdeterministic algorithmpolynomial degreesparsity boundpolynomial factorizationtotal degreecomputational complexityfinite fields
Authors
Qiao-Long Huang, Yichuan Cao, Ruichen Qiu, Xiao-Shan Gao
Abstract
We study the problem of deterministically computing the exact root of a sparse polynomial in the multivariate setting. Let $f \in \F[x_1,\ldots,x_n]$ be a nonzero polynomial that is an exact $e$-th power, say $f = g^e$. Suppose $f$ is $s$-sparse, has an individual degree of at most $d$, and a total degree of $D = \tdeg(f)$. We prove a sparsity bound on the base polynomial $g$: \[ \|g\|_0 \le s^{D(2d+2)/e + 1}. \] Based on this bound, we develop a deterministic algorithm that computes the base $g$. % In contrast to the general deterministic factorization algorithm of Bhargava, Saraf, and Volkovich \cite{BhargavaSarafVolkovich2020}, which achieves only a quasi-polynomial dependence on the input parameters, our algorithm is \emph{polynomial-time} in the setting where the total degree $D$ is bounded. Specifically, the overall complexity is \[ \mathrm{poly}\left(s^{O(Dd)}, n, d, D\right) + s\cdot R(e), \] % where $R(e)$ denotes the cost of constructing a single $e$-th root of a scalar in the base field $\F$, and, when $\operatorname{char}(\F)\mid e$, the cost of computing a single Frobenius root of a scalar. % This term is field-dependent, and over finite fields, $\mathbb{Q}$, or number fields with a suitable representation, it is absorbed into the polynomial complexity bound. % Within the bounded total-degree regime, this yields a deterministic polynomial-time algorithm for exact-root computation.