Let @math be a linear matrix, or pencil, generated by given symmetric matrices @math of size @math with rational entries. The set of real vectors x such that the pencil is positive semidefinite is a convex semi-algebraic set called spectrahedron, described by a linear matrix inequality (LMI). We design an exact algorithm that, up to genericity assumptions on the input matrices, computes an exact algebraic representation of at least one point in the spectrahedron, or decides that it is empty. The algorithm does not assume the existence of an interior point, and the computed point minimizes the rank of the pencil on the spectrahedron. The degree @math of the algebraic representation of the point coincides experimentally with the algebraic degree of a generic semidefinite program associated to the pencil. We provide explicit bounds for the complexity of our algorithm, proving that the maximum number of arithmetic operations that are performed is essentially quadratic in a multilinear B 'ezout bound of @math . When @math (resp. @math ) is fixed, such a bound, and hence the complexity, is polynomial in @math (resp. @math ). We conclude by providing results of experiments showing practical improvements with respect to state-of-the-art computer algebra algorithms.
The problem of finding @math matrices (with @math ) of rank @math in a real affine subspace of dimension n has many applications in information and systems theory, where low rank is synonymous of structure and parsimony. We design computer algebra algorithms to solve this problem efficiently and exactly: the input are the rational coefficients of the matrices spanning the affine subspace as well as the expected maximum rank, and the output is a rational parametrization encoding a finite set of points that intersects each connected component of the low rank real algebraic set. The complexity of our algorithm is studied thoroughly. It is essentially polynomial in @math ; it improves on the state-of-the-art in the field. Moreover, computer experiments show the practical efficiency of our approach. Let A 0 , A 1 , ? , A n be given square matrices of size m with rational coefficients. The paper focuses on the exact computation of one point in each connected component of the real determinantal variety x ? R n : det ? ( A 0 + x 1 A 1 + ? + x n A n ) = 0 . Such a problem finds applications in many areas such as control theory, computational geometry, optimization, etc. Under some genericity assumptions on the coefficients of the matrices, we provide an algorithm solving this problem whose runtime is essentially polynomial in the binomial coefficient ( n + m n ) . We also report on experiments with a computer implementation of this algorithm. Its practical performance illustrates the complexity estimates. In particular, we emphasize that for subfamilies of this problem where m is fixed, the complexity is polynomial in n.