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Filip Cools

Publications and source records attributed to Filip Cools.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2025

Arrow graphs and their focal curves

The arrow graph of a function consists of two parallel axes, with arrows from input values to output values. The lines through these arrows envelop a curve which we named the focal curve. This paper studies these focal curves in detail. We show how the focal curve relates to the derivative of the function, and how this also provided a parametrization of the focal curve. This is illustrated through various examples, and can be experienced in linked GeoGebra-applications. Next, we provide an interpretation of focal curves in projective geometry, relating the focal curve to the dual curve of the graph of the function. Finally, we provide some results on the behavior of focal curves under transformations and compositions.

math.HO↗
arXiv2017

Brill-Noether theory of curves on $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^1$: tropical and classical approach

The gonality sequence $(d_r)_{r\geq1}$ of a smooth algebraic curve comprises the minimal degrees $d_r$ of linear systems of rank $r$. We explain two approaches to compute the gonality sequence of smooth curves in $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^1$: a tropical and a classical approach. The tropical approach uses the recently developed Brill--Noether theory on tropical curves and Baker's specialization of linear systems from curves to metric graphs. The classical one extends the work of Hartshorne on plane curves to curves on $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^1$.

math.AG↗
arXiv2017

Minimal polygons with fixed lattice width

We classify the unimodular equivalence classes of inclusion-minimal polygons with a certain fixed lattice width. As a corollary, we find a sharp upper bound on the number of lattice points of these minimal polygons.

math.CO↗
arXiv2016

Canonical syzygies of smooth curves on toric surfaces

In a first part of this paper, we prove constancy of the canonical graded Betti table among the smooth curves in linear systems on Gorenstein weak Fano toric surfaces. In a second part, we show that Green's canonical syzygy conjecture holds for all smooth curves of genus at most 32 or Clifford index at most 6 on arbitrary toric surfaces. Conversely we use known results on Green's conjecture (due to Lelli-Chiesa) to obtain new facts about graded Betti tables of projectively embedded toric surfaces.

math.AG↗
arXiv2016

Computing graded Betti tables of toric surfaces

We present various facts on the graded Betti table of a projectively embedded toric surface, expressed in terms of the combinatorics of its defining lattice polygon. These facts include explicit formulas for a number of entries, as well as a lower bound on the length of the linear strand that we conjecture to be sharp (and prove to be so in several special cases). We also present an algorithm for determining the graded Betti table of a given toric surface by explicitly computing its Koszul cohomology, and report on an implementation in SageMath. This works well for ambient projective spaces of dimension up to roughly $25$, depending on the concrete combinatorics, although the current implementation runs in finite characteristic only. As a main application we obtain the graded Betti table of the Veronese surface $\nu_6(\mathbb{P}^2) \subseteq \mathbb{P}^{27}$ in characteristic $40\,009$. This allows us to formulate precise conjectures predicting what certain entries look like in the case of an arbitrary Veronese surface $\nu_d(\mathbb{P}^2)$.

math.AG↗
arXiv2016

The gonality sequence of complete graphs

The gonality sequence $(\gamma_r)_{r\geq1}$ of a finite graph / metric graph / algebraic curve comprises the minimal degrees $\gamma_r$ of linear systems of rank $r$. For the complete graph $K_d$, we show that $\gamma_r = kd - h$ if $r<g=\frac{(d-1)(d-2)}{2}$, where $k$ and $h$ are the uniquely determined integers such that $r = \frac{k(k+3)}{2} - h$ with $1\leq k\leq d-3$ and $0 \leq h \leq k $. This shows that the graph $K_d$ has the gonality sequence of a smooth plane curve of degree $d$. The same result holds for the corresponding metric graphs.

math.CO↗
arXiv2016

On metric graphs with prescribed gonality

We prove that in the moduli space of genus-g metric graphs the locus of graphs with gonality at most d has the classical dimension min{3g-3,2g+2d-5}. This follows from a careful parameter count to establish the upper bound and a construction of sufficiently many graphs with gonality at most d to establish the lower bound. Here, gonality is the minimal degree of a non-degenerate harmonic map to a tree that satisfies the Riemann-Hurwitz condition everywhere. Along the way, we establish a convenient combinatorial datum capturing such harmonic maps to trees.

math.CO↗
arXiv2014

A combinatorial interpretation for Schreyer's tetragonal invariants

Schreyer has proved that the graded Betti numbers of a canonical tetragonal curve are determined by two integers $b_1$ and $b_2$, associated to the curve through a certain geometric construction. In this article we prove that in the case of a smooth projective tetragonal curve on a toric surface, these integers have easy interpretations in terms of the Newton polygon of its defining Laurent polynomial. We can use this to prove an intrinsicness result on Newton polygons of small lattice width.

math.AG↗
arXiv2014

Linear pencils encoded in the Newton polygon

Let $C$ be an algebraic curve defined by a sufficiently generic bivariate Laurent polynomial with given Newton polygon $\Delta$. It is classical that the geometric genus of $C$ equals the number of lattice points in the interior of $\Delta$. In this paper we give similar combinatorial interpretations for the gonality, the Clifford index and the Clifford dimension, by removing a technical assumption from a recent result of Kawaguchi. More generally, the method shows that apart from certain well-understood exceptions, every base-point free pencil whose degree equals or slightly exceeds the gonality is 'combinatorial', in the sense that it corresponds to projecting $C$ along a lattice direction. We then give an interpretation for the scrollar invariants associated to a combinatorial pencil, and show how one can tell whether the pencil is complete or not. Among the applications, we find that every smooth projective curve admits at most one Weierstrass semi-group of embedding dimension $2$, and that if a non-hyperelliptic smooth projective curve $C$ of genus $g \geq 2$ can be embedded in the $n$th Hirzebruch surface $\mathcal{H}_n$, then $n$ is actually an invariant of $C$.

math.AG↗
arXiv2014

The lattice size of a lattice polygon

We give upper bounds on the minimal degree of a model in $\mathbb{P}^2$ and the minimal bidegree of a model in $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^1$ of the curve defined by a given Laurent polynomial, in terms of the combinatorics of the Newton polygon of the latter. We prove in various cases that this bound is sharp as soon as the polynomial is sufficiently generic with respect to its Newton polygon.

math.CO↗
arXiv2013

Intrinsicness of the Newton polygon for smooth curves on $\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb{P}^1$

Let $C$ be a smooth projective curve in $\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb{P}^1$ of genus $g\neq 4$, and assume that it is birationally equivalent to a curve defined by a Laurent polynomial that is non-degenerate with respect to its Newton polygon $\Delta$. Then we show that the convex hull $\Delta^{(1)}$ of the interior lattice points of $\Delta$ is a standard rectangle, up to a unimodular transformation. Our main auxiliary result, which we believe to be interesting in its own right, is that the first scrollar Betti numbers of $\Delta$-non-degenerate curves are encoded in the combinatorics of $\Delta^{(1)}$, if $\Delta$ satisfies some mild conditions.

math.AG↗
arXiv2011

Newton polygons and curve gonalities

We give a combinatorial upper bound for the gonality of a curve that is defined by a bivariate Laurent polynomial with given Newton polygon. We conjecture that this bound is generically attained, and provide proofs in a considerable number of special cases. One proof technique uses recent work of M. Baker on linear systems on graphs, by means of which we reduce our conjecture to a purely combinatorial statement.

math.AG↗
arXiv2011

Linear pencils of tropical plane curves

Analogously as in classical algebraic geometry, linear pencils of tropical plane curves are parameterized by tropical lines in a coefficient space. A special example of such a linear pencil is the set of tropical plane curves with an n-element support set through a general configuration of n points in the tropical plane. In [RGST], it is proved that these linear pencils are compatible with their support set. In this article, we give a characterization of points lying in the fixed locus of a tropical linear pencil and show that each compatible linear pencil comes from a general configuration.

math.AG↗
arXiv2010

Linear pencils on graphs and on real curves

A degeneration of curves gives rise to an interesting relation between linear systems on curves and on graphs. In this paper, we consider the case of linear pencils and as an application, we obtain some results on pencils on real curves.

math.AG↗
arXiv2010

A tropical proof of the Brill-Noether Theorem

We produce Brill-Noether general graphs in every genus, confirming a conjecture of Baker and giving a new proof of the Brill-Noether Theorem, due to Griffiths and Harris, over any algebraically closed field.

math.AG↗
arXiv2009

Singular hypersurfaces possessing infinitely many star points

We prove that a component of the closure of the set of star points on a hypersurface X of degree d>2 in N-dimensional projective space is linear. Afterwards, we focus on the case where the component is of maximal dimension N-2 and the case where X is a surface (i.e. N=3).

math.AG↗
arXiv2009

Star points on smooth hypersurfaces

A point P on a smooth hypersurface X of degree d in an N-dimensional projective space is called a star point if and only if the intersection of X with the embedded tangent space T_P(X) is a cone with vertex P. This notion is a generalization of total inflection points on plane curves and Eckardt points on smooth cubic surfaces in three-dimensional projective space. We generalize results on the configuration space of total inflection points on plane curves to star points. We give a detailed description of the configuration space for hypersurfaces with two or three star points. We investigate collinear star points and we prove that the number of star points on a smooth hypersurface is finite.

math.AG↗