ar X iv : 0 81 0 . 29 83 v 1 [ m at h . N A ] 1 6 O ct 2 00 8 Polyhedral Methods in Numerical Algebraic Geometry ∗

In numerical algebraic geometry witness sets are numerical representations of positive dimensional solution sets of polynomial systems. Considering the asymptotics of witness sets we propose certificates for algebraic curves. These certificates are the leading terms of a Puiseux series expansion of the curve starting at infinity. The vector of powers of the first term in the series is a tropism. For proper algebraic curves, we relate the computation of tropisms to the calculation of mixed volumes. With this relationship, the computation of tropisms and Puiseux series expansions could be used as a preprocessing stage prior to a more expensive witness set computation. Systems with few monomials have fewer isolated solutions and fewer data are needed to represent their positive dimensional solution sets. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 65H10. Secondary 14Q99, 68W30.