Re: Limit and Root Objects
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg72620] Re: Limit and Root Objects
- From: Paul Abbott <paul at physics.uwa.edu.au>
- Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:05:49 -0500 (EST)
- Organization: The University of Western Australia
- References: <em606c$2o1$1@smc.vnet.net> <4586C045.2020805@metrohm.ch> <em8jfr$pfv$1@smc.vnet.net>
In article <em8jfr$pfv$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
Andrzej Kozlowski <andrzej at akikoz.net> wrote:
> What you describe, including the fact that the numbering or roots
> changes is inevitable and none of it is not a bug. There cannot exist
> an ordering of complex roots that does not suffer from this problem.
> What happens is this.
> Real root objects are ordered in the natural way. A cubic can have
> either three real roots or one real root and two conjugate complex
> ones. Let's assume we have the latter situation. Then the real root
> will be counted as being earlier then the complex ones. Now suppose
> you start changing the coefficients continuously. The roots will
> start "moving in the complex plane", with the real root remaining on
> the real line the two complex roots always remaining conjugate
> (symmetric with respect to the real axis). Eventually they may
> collide and form a double real root. If this double real root is now
> smaller then the the "original real root" (actually than the root to
> which the original real root moved due the the changing of the
> parameter), there will be a jump in the ordering; the former root
> number 1 becoming number 3.
> This is completely unavoidable, not any kind of bug, and I am not
> complaining about it. It takes only elementary topology of
> configuration spaces to prove that this must always be so.
But is there a continuous root numbering if the roots are not ordered?
What I mean is that if you compute the roots of a polynomial, which is a
function of a parameter, then if you assign a number to each root, can
you follow that root continuously as the parameter changes? Two examples
are presented below.
Here is some code to animate numbered roots using the standard root
ordering, displaying the root numbering:
rootplot[r_] := Table[ListPlot[
Transpose[{Re[x /. r[a]], Im[x /. r[a]]}],
PlotStyle -> AbsolutePointSize[10],
PlotRange -> {{-3, 3}, {-3, 3}},
AspectRatio -> Automatic,
PlotLabel -> StringJoin["a=", ToString[PaddedForm[Chop[a], {2, 1}]]],
Epilog -> {GrayLevel[1],
MapIndexed[Text[#2[[1]], {Re[#1], Im[#1]}] & , x /. r[a]]}],
{a, -6, 10, 0.5}]
First, we have a polynomial with real coefficients:
r1[a_] = Solve[x^5 - a x - 1 == 0, x]
Animating the trajectories of the roots using
rootplot[r1]
we observe that, as you mention above, when the complex conjugate roots
2 and 3 coalesce, they become real roots 1 and 2 and root 1 becomes root
3. But, ignoring root ordering, why isn't it possible for these roots to
maintain their identity (I realise that at coelescence, there is an
arbitrariness)?
Second, we have a polynomial with a complex coefficient:
r2[a_] = Solve[x^5 + (1+I) x^4 - a x - 1 == 0, x]
Animating the trajectories of the roots using
rootplot[r2]
we observe that, even though the trajectories of the roots are
continuous, the numbering switches:
2 -> 3 -> 4
5 -> 4 -> 3
3 -> 4 -> 5
4 -> 3 -> 2
and only root 1 remains invariant. Again, ignoring root ordering, why
isn't it possible for all these roots to maintain their identity and so
be continuous functions of the parameter? And wouldn't such continuity
be nicer than enforcing root ordering?
Cheers,
Paul
_______________________________________________________________________
Paul Abbott Phone: 61 8 6488 2734
School of Physics, M013 Fax: +61 8 6488 1014
The University of Western Australia (CRICOS Provider No 00126G)
AUSTRALIA http://physics.uwa.edu.au/~paul
- Follow-Ups:
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- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl>
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