Finding binomials in polynomial ideals

*Correspondence: [email protected] 2Otto-von-Guericke Universität, Magdeburg, Germany Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Abstract We describe an algorithm which finds binomials in a given ideal I ⊂ Q[x1, . . . , xn] and in particular decides whether binomials exist in I at all. Binomials in polynomial ideals can be well hidden. For example, the lowest degree of a binomial cannot be bounded as a function of the number of indeterminates, the degree of the generators, or the Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity. We approach the detection problem by reduction to the Artinian case using tropical geometry. The Artinian case is solved with algorithms from computational number theory.