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Steffen's polyhedron was believed to have the least number of vertices among polyhedra that can flex without self-intersections. Maksimov clarified that the pentagonal bipyramid with one face subdivided into three is the only polyhedron with fewer vertices for which the existence of a self-intersection-free flex was open. Since subdividing a face into three does not change the mobility, we focus on flexible pentagonal bipyramids. When a bipyramid flexes, the distance between the two opposite vertices of the two pyramids changes; associating the position of the bipyramid to this distance yields an algebraic map that determines a nontrivial extension of rational function fields. We classify flexible pentagonal bipyramids with respect to the Galois group of this field extension and provide examples for each class, building on a construction proposed by Nelson. Surprisingly, one of our constructions yields a flexible pentagonal bipyramid that can be extended to an embedded flexible polyhedron with 8 vertices. The latter hence solves the open question., Comment: 31 pages

Given a ternary homogeneous polynomial, the fixed points of the map from $\mathbb{P}^2$ to itself defined by its gradient are called its eigenpoints. We focus on cubic polynomials, and analyze configurations of eigenpoints that admit one or more alignments. We give a classification and explicit equations, in the coordinates of the points, of all configurations: this is accomplished by using both geometric techniques and by an extensive use of computer algebra., Comment: 34 pages

We introduce a recursive procedure for computing the number of realizations of a minimally rigid graph on the sphere up to rotations. We accomplish this by combining two ingredients. The first is a framework that allows us to think of such realizations as of elements of a moduli space of stable rational curves with marked points. The second is the idea of splitting a minimally rigid graph into two subgraphs, called calligraphs, that admit one degree of freedom and that share only a single edge and a further vertex. This idea has been recently employed for realizations of graphs in the plane up to isometries. The key result is that we can associate to a calligraph a triple of natural numbers with a special property: whenever a minimally rigid graph is split into two calligraphs, the number of realizations of the former equals the product of the two triples of the latter, where this product is specified by a fixed quadratic form. These triples and quadratic form codify the fact that we express realizations as intersections of two curves on the blowup of a sphere along two pairs of complex conjugate points.

Finding necessary conditions for the geometry of flexible polyhedra is a classical problem that has received attention also in recent times. For flexible polyhedra with triangular faces, we showed in a previous work the existence of cycles with a sign assignment for their edges, such that the signed sum of the edge lengths along the cycle is zero. In this work, we extend this result to flexible non-triangular polyhedra., Comment: 9 pages

We construct parallel manipulators with one degree of freedom and admitting infinitely many legs lying on a curve of degree ten and genus six. Our technique relies upon a duality between the spaces parametrizing all the possible legs and all the possible configurations of a manipulator. Before describing our construction, we show how this duality helps explaining several known phenomena regarding mobility of parallel manipulators., Comment: 14 pages

The understanding of mobile hexapods, i.e., parallel manipulators with six legs, is one of the driving questions in theoretical kinematics. We aim at contributing to this understanding by employing techniques from algebraic geometry. The set of configurations of a mobile hexapod with one degree of freedom has the structure of a projective curve, which hence has a degree and an embedding dimension. Our main result is a classification of configuration curves of hexapods that satisfy some restrictions on their embedding dimension., Comment: 41 pages

We show that if a polyhedron in the three-dimensional affine space with triangular faces is flexible, i.e., can be continuously deformed preserving the shape of its faces, then there is a cycle of edges whose lengths sum up to zero once suitably weighted by 1 and -1. We do this via elementary combinatorial considerations, made possible by a well-known compactification of the three-dimensional affine space as a quadric in the four-dimensional projective space. The compactification is related to the Euclidean metric, and allows us to use a simple degeneration technique that reduces the problem to its one-dimensional analogue, which is trivial to solve.

We re-prove the classification of flexible octahedra, obtained by Bricard at the beginning of the XX century, by means of combinatorial objects satisfying some elementary rules. The explanations of these rules rely on the use of a well-known creation of modern algebraic geometry, the moduli space of stable rational curves with marked points, for the description of configurations of graphs on the sphere. Once one accepts the objects and the rules, the classification becomes elementary (though not trivial) and can be enjoyed without the need of a very deep background on the topic., Comment: 40 pages, 23 figures. Animations of flexible octahedra available at https://jan.legersky.cz/project/bricard_octahedra/

We interpret realizations of a graph on the sphere up to rotations as elements of a moduli space of curves of genus zero. We focus on those graphs that admit an assignment of edge lengths on the sphere resulting in a flexible object. Our interpretation of realizations allows us to provide a combinatorial characterization of these graphs in terms of the existence of particular colorings of the edges. Moreover, we determine necessary relations for flexibility between the spherical lengths of the edges. We conclude by classifying all possible motions on the sphere of the complete bipartite graph with $3+3$ vertices where no two vertices coincide or are antipodal., Comment: 42 pages. This is the accepted version of the manuscript; the final version of this work is https://doi.org/10.1137/19M1289467

We provide algorithms to reconstruct rational ruled surfaces in three-dimensional projective space from the `apparent contour' of a single projection to the projective plane. We deal with the case of tangent developables and of general projections to $\mathbb{p}^3$ of rational normal scrolls. In the first case, we use the fact that every such surface is the projection of the tangent developable of a rational normal curve, while in the second we start by reconstructing the rational normal scroll. In both instances we then reconstruct the correct projection to $\mathbb{p}^3$ of these surfaces by exploiting the information contained in the singularities of the apparent contour., Comment: 17 pages

We present an algorithm that computes the number of realizations of a Laman graph on a sphere for a general choice of the angles between the vertices. The algorithm is based on the interpretation of such a realization as a point in the moduli space of stable curves of genus zero with marked points, and on the explicit description, due to Keel, of the Chow ring of this space., Comment: 15 pages

We present algorithms for reconstructing, up to unavoidable projective automorphisms, surfaces with ordinary singularities in three dimensional space starting from their silhouette, or "apparent contour" - namely the branching locus of a projection on the plane - and the projection of their singular locus., Comment: 36 pages

We study the probability for a random line to intersect a given plane curve, defined over a finite field, in a given number of points defined over the same field. In particular, we focus on the limits of these probabilities under successive finite field extensions. Supposing absolute irreducibility for the curve, we show how a variant of Chebotarev density theorem for function fields can be used to prove the existence of these limits, and to compute them under a mildly stronger condition, known as simple tangency. Partial results have already appeared in the literature, and we propose this work as an introduction to the use of Chebotarev theorem in the context of incidence geometry. Finally, Veronese maps allow us to compute similar probabilities of intersection between a given curve and random curves of given degree., Comment: 17 pages

Given two general rational curves of the same degree in two projective spaces, one can ask whether there exists a third rational curve of the same degree that projects to both of them. We show that, under suitable assumptions on the degree of the curves and the dimensions of the two given ambient projective spaces, the number of curves and projections fulfilling the requirements is finite. Using standard techniques in intersection theory and the Bott residue formula, we compute this number., Comment: 27 pages. This is the accepted version of the manuscript; the published version is available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11856-020-2071-3

Laman graphs model planar frameworks which are rigid for a general choice of distances between the vertices. There are finitely many ways, up to isometries, to realize a Laman graph in the plane. In a recent paper we provide a recursion formula for this number of realizations using ideas from algebraic and tropical geometry. Here, we present a concise summary of this result focusing on the main ideas and the combinatorial point of view., Comment: Extended abstract; the long version is arxiv:1701.05500

Laman graphs model planar frameworks that are rigid for a general choice of distances between the vertices. There are finitely many ways, up to isometries, to realize a Laman graph in the plane. Such realizations can be seen as solutions of systems of quadratic equations prescribing the distances between pairs of points. Using ideas from algebraic and tropical geometry, we provide a recursive formula for the number of complex solutions of such systems., Comment: 36 pages

Pods are mechanical devices constituted of two rigid bodies, the base and the platform, connected by a number of other rigid bodies, called legs, that are anchored via spherical joints. It is possible to prove that the maximal number of legs of a mobile pod, when finite, is 20. In 1904, Borel designed a technique to construct examples of such 20-pods, but could not constrain the legs to have base and platform points with real coordinates. We show that Borel's construction yields all mobile 20-pods, and that it is possible to construct examples with all real coordinates., Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures

It is known that there exist hyperplane arrangements with same underlying matroid that admit non-homotopy equivalent complement manifolds. In this work we show that, in any rank, complex central hyperplane arrangements with up to 7 hyperplanes and same underlying matroid are isotopic. In particular, the diffeomorphism type of the complement manifold and the Milnor fiber and fibration of these arrangements are combinatorially determined, i.e., they depend uniquely on the underlying matroid. To do this, we associate to every such matroid a topological space, that we call the reduced realization space; its connectedness, showed by means of symbolic computation, implies the desired result., Comment: 16 pages. Cross-references added, typos fixed, Theorem 3.1 restated in a more general frame, some remarks added

Powersum varieties, also called varieties of sums of powers, have provided examples of interesting relations between varieties since their first appearance in the 19th century. One of the most useful tools to study them is apolarity, a notion originally related to the action of differential operators on the polynomial ring. In this work we make explicit how one can see apolarity in terms of the Cox ring of a variety. In this way powersum varieties are a special case of varieties of apolar schemes; we explicitely describe examples of such varieties in the case of two toric surfaces, when the Cox ring is particularly well-behaved., Comment: 25 pages, to appear in Arkiv f\"or Matematik

The complete classification of hexapods - also known as Stewart Gough platforms - of mobility one is still open. To tackle this problem, we can associate to each hexapod of mobility one an algebraic curve, called the configuration curve. In this paper we establish an upper bound for the degree of this curve, assuming the hexapod is general enough. Moreover, we provide a construction of hexapods with curves of maximal degree, which is based on liaison, a technique used in the theory of algebraic curves., Comment: 40 pages, 6 figures

Designing mechanical devices, called linkages, that draw a given plane curve has been a topic that interested engineers and mathematicians for hundreds of years, and recently also computer scientists. Already in 1876, Kempe proposed a procedure for solving the problem in full generality, but his constructions tend to be extremely complicated. We provide a novel algorithm that produces much simpler linkages, but works only for parametric curves. Our approach is to transform the problem into a factorization task over some noncommutative algebra. We show how to compute such a factorization, and how to use it to construct a linkage tracing a given curve., Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures

This is a study of a problem in geodesy with methods from complex algebraic geometry: for a fixed number of measure points and target points at unknown position in the Euclidean plane, we study the problem of determining their relative position when the viewing angles between target points seen from measure points are known. In particular, we determine all situations in which there is more than one solution.

Motivated by results on the mobility of mechanical devices called pentapods, this paper deals with a mathematically freestanding problem, which we call M\"obius Photogrammetry. Unlike traditional photogrammetry, which tries to recover a set of points in three-dimensional space from a finite set of central projection, we consider the problem of reconstructing a vector of points in $\mathbb{R}^3$ starting from its orthogonal parallel projections. Moreover, we assume that we have partial information about these projections, namely that we know them only up to M\"obius transformations. The goal in this case is to understand to what extent we can reconstruct the starting set of points, and to prove that the result can be achieved if we allow some uncertainties in the answer. Eventually, the techniques developed in the paper allow us to show that for a pentapod with mobility at least two either some anchor points are collinear, or platform and base are similar, or they are planar and affine equivalent., Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures. updated references and fixed typographical errors

This paper deals with the old and classical problem of determining necessary conditions for the overconstrained mobility of some mechanical device. In particular, we show that the mobility of pentapods/hexapods implies either a collinearity condition on the anchor points, or a geometric condition on the normal projections of base and platform points. The method is based on a specific compactification of the group of direct isometries of $\mathbb{R}^3$., Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure

Resultants and Gr\"obner bases are crucial tools in studying polynomial elimination theory. We investigate relations between the variety of the resultant of two polynomials and the variety of the ideal they generate. Then we focus on the bivariate case, in which the elimination ideal is principal. We study - by means of elementary tools - the difference between the multiplicity of the factors of the generator of the elimination ideal and the multiplicity of the factors of the resultant., Comment: 7 pages