An extension of Buchberger’s criteria for Gröbner basis decision
AbstractTwo fundamental questions in the theory of Gröbner bases are decision (‘Is a basisGof a polynomial ideal a Gröbner basis?’) and transformation (‘If it is not, how do we transform it into a Gröbner basis?’) This paper considers the first question. It is well known thatGis a Gröbner basis if and only if a certain set of polynomials (theS-polynomials) satisfy a certain property. In general there arem(m−1)/2 of these, wheremis the number of polynomials inG, but criteria due to Buchberger and others often allow one to consider a smaller number. This paper presents two original results. The first is a new characterization theorem for Gröbner bases that makes use of a new criterion that extends Buchberger’s criteria. The second is the identification of a class of polynomial systemsGfor which the new criterion has dramatic impact, reducing the worst-case scenario fromm(m−1)/2 S-polynomials tom−1.