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# Toric ideals, real toric varieties, and the algebraic moment map

## Introduction

We develop further aspects of toric varieties that may be useful in geometric modeling, building on Cox’s introduction to toric varieties, What is a toric variety? \[Cox03\], which also appears in this volume. Notation and terminology follow that article, with a few small exceptions. This paper is organized into eight sections:

1. Projective Toric Varieties
2. Toric Ideals
3. Linear Projections
4. Rational Varieties
5. Implicit Degree of a Toric Variety
6. The Real Part of a Toric Variety
7. The Double Pillow
8. Linear Precision and the Algebraic Moment Map

## 1. Projective Toric Varieties

In this tutorial, we study toric varieties as subvarieties of projective space. This differs slightly from Cox’s \[Cox03\] presentation, where toric varieties are studied via the abstract toric variety $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of a fan $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The resulting loss of generality is compensated by the additional perspective this alternative view provides. Only in the last few sections do we discuss abstract toric varieties.

A projective toric variety may be given as the closure of the image of a map

$$(^{})^n^{\mathrm{}},$$

defined by Laurent monomials as in Section 13 of \[Cox03\]. There, the monomials had exponent vectors given by all the integer lattice points in a polytope. Here, we study maps given by any set of Laurent monomials.

Our basic data structure will be a list of integer exponent vectors

$$𝒜:=\{𝐦_0,𝐦_1,\mathrm{},𝐦_{\mathrm{}}\}^n.$$

Such a list gives rise to a map $`\phi _𝒜`$ (written $`\phi `$ when $`𝒜`$ is understood),

(1.1)
$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill \phi _𝒜& :& (^{})^n& & ^{\mathrm{}}\hfill \\ & & 𝐭& & [𝐭^{𝐦_0},𝐭^{𝐦_1},\mathrm{},𝐭^𝐦_{\mathrm{}}].\hfill \end{array}$$

We explain this notation. Given $`𝐭=(t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)(^{})^n`$ and an exponent vector $`𝐚=(a_1,\mathrm{},a_n)`$, the monomial $`𝐭^𝐚`$ is equal to $`t_1^{a_1}t_2^{a_2}\mathrm{}t_n^{a_n}`$. In this way, the coordinates of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ are naturally indexed by the exponent vectors lying in $`𝒜`$. The toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ is the closure in $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ of the image of the map $`\phi _𝒜`$. This map $`\phi _𝒜`$ gives a parametrization of $`Y_𝒜`$ by the monomials whose exponents lie in $`𝒜`$.

We claim that $`Y_𝒜`$ is a toric variety as defined in Section 2 of \[Cox03\]. The map

$$(^{})^n𝐭(𝐭^{𝐦_0},𝐭^{𝐦_1},\mathrm{},𝐭^𝐦_{\mathrm{}})(^{})^{1+\mathrm{}}$$

is a homomorphism from the group $`(^{})^n`$ to the group $`(^{})^{1+\mathrm{}}`$ of diagonal $`(1+\mathrm{})`$ by $`(1+\mathrm{})`$ matrices, which acts on $`^{\mathrm{}}`$. Thus $`(^{})^n`$ acts on $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ via this map. Since scalar matrices (those in $`^{}I_{1+\mathrm{}}`$) act trivially on $`^{\mathrm{}}`$, this action of $`(^{})^{1+\mathrm{}}`$ on $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ factors through the group $`(^{})^{1+\mathrm{}}/^{}I_{1+\mathrm{}}(^{})^{\mathrm{}}`$, which is the dense torus in the toric variety $`^{\mathrm{}}`$. Then $`Y_𝒜`$ is the closure of the image of $`(^{})^n`$ in this torus, that image $`T`$ acts on $`Y_𝒜`$, and thus $`T`$ is the dense torus of $`Y_𝒜`$.

Suppose that $`𝒜=\mathrm{\Delta }^n`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a lattice polytope. Then $`Y_𝒜`$ is the image of the abstract toric variety $`X_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ given by the normal fan of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ under the map of Section 13 in \[Cox03\]. When $`𝒜`$ has this form, we write $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for $`Y_𝒜`$.

###### Example 1.2.

Consider the three lattice polytopes

$`[n],`$ $`\text{the line segment }[0,n],`$
$`\mathrm{}_n,`$ $`\text{the triangle }\{(x,y)^20x,y,x+yn\},\text{and}`$
$`\mathrm{}_{m,n},`$ $`\text{the rectangle }\{(x,y)^20xm,0yn\}.`$
The maps $`\phi `$ for these polytopes are

$`t`$ $``$ $`[1,t,t^2,\mathrm{},t^n]^n,`$
$`(s,t)`$ $``$ $`[1,s,t,s^2,st,t^2,\mathrm{},s^n,s^{n1}t,\mathrm{},t^n]^{\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n+2}{2}\right)}\text{},\text{and}`$
$`(s,t)`$ $``$ $`[1,s,\mathrm{},s^m,t,st,\mathrm{},s^mt,\mathrm{},t^n,st^n,s^mt^n]^{mn}\text{}.`$
and the resulting projective toric varieties are known (see \[Har92\]) as

$`Y_{[n]}`$ $`=`$ $`\text{the rational normal curve in }^n,`$
$`Y_\mathrm{}_n`$ $`=`$ $`\text{the Veronese embedding of }^2\text{ in }^{\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n+2}{2}\right)},\text{and}`$
$`Y_{\mathrm{}_{m,n}}`$ $`=`$ $`\text{the Segre embedding of }^1\times ^1\text{ in }^{mn}\text{ of bidegree }m,n.`$
In geometric modeling these projective toric varieties give rise to, respectively, Bézier curves, rational Bézier triangles of degree $`n`$, and tensor product surfaces of bidegree $`(m,n)`$.

###### Example 1.3.

Let $`n=1`$ and $`𝒜=\{0,2,3\}`$. Then the map (1.1) is

$$t[1,t^2,t^3]$$

whose image $`Y_𝒜`$ is the cuspidal cubic

$`𝐕(x_0x_2^2x_1^3)=`$
which is the non-normal toric variety of Example 3.2 in \[Cox03\].

###### Example 1.4.

Let $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ be the hexagon which is the convex hull of the six column vectors $`\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{0}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{1}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{0}{1}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{0}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{1}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{0}{1}\right]`$. We depict $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and its normal fan $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

Then $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ consists of these six vectors (the vertices of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) together with the origin $`\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{0}{0}\right]`$. Thus $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }=\overline{\{[1,t,st,s,t^1,s^1t^1,s^1]s,t^\times \}}^6`$.

###### Remark 1.5.

Suppose that the origin $`\mathrm{𝟎}`$ is an element of $`𝒜`$ and that $`m_0=\mathrm{𝟎}`$. Then the image of the map $`\phi `$ of (1.1) lies in the principal affine part of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$

$$U_0:=\{x^{\mathrm{}}x_00\}^{\mathrm{}},$$

whose coordinates are $`[1,x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}}]`$. Thus $`U_0Y_𝒜`$ is an affine toric variety. In this case, the dimension of the projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ is equal to the dimension of the linear span of the exponent vectors $`𝒜`$.

## 2. Toric Ideals

The toric ideal $`I_𝒜`$ is the homogeneous ideal of polynomials whose vanishing defines the projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜^{\mathrm{}}`$. Equivalently, $`I_𝒜`$ is the ideal of all the homogeneous polynomials vanishing on $`\phi _𝒜((^{})^n)`$. Our description of $`I_𝒜`$ follows the presentation in Sturmfels’s book, *Gröbner bases and convex polytopes* \[Stu96\].

Let $`[x_0,x_1,\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}}]`$ be homogeneous coordinates for $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ with $`x_j`$ corresponding to the monomial $`𝐭^{𝐦_j}`$ in the map $`\phi _𝒜`$ (1.1), where $`𝒜=\{𝐦_0,𝐦_1,\mathrm{},𝐦_{\mathrm{}}\}`$. A monomial $`𝐱^𝐮`$ in these coordinates has an exponent vector $`𝐮^{1+\mathrm{}}`$. Restricting the monomial $`𝐱^𝐮`$ to $`\phi _𝒜(t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)=[𝐭^{𝐦_0},𝐭^{𝐦_2},\mathrm{},𝐭^𝐦_{\mathrm{}}]`$ yields the monomial

$$𝐭^{u_0𝐦_0+u_1𝐦_1+\mathrm{}+u_{\mathrm{}}𝐦_{\mathrm{}}}.$$

This exponent vector is $`𝒜𝐮`$, where we consider $`𝒜`$ to be the matrix whose columns are the exponent vectors in $`𝒜`$. For the hexagon of Example 1.4, this is

$$\left(\begin{array}{ccccccc}0& 1& 1& 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1\end{array}\right)$$

This discussion shows that a homogeneous binomial $`𝐱^𝐮𝐱^𝐯`$ with $`𝒜𝐮=𝒜𝐯`$ vanishes on $`\phi _𝒜((^{})^n)`$ and hence lies in the toric ideal $`I_𝒜`$. In fact, the toric ideal $`I_𝒜`$ is the linear span of these binomials.

###### Theorem 2.1.

The toric ideal $`I_𝒜`$ is the linear span of all homogeneous binomials $`𝐱^𝐮𝐱^𝐯`$ with $`𝒜𝐮=𝒜𝐯`$.

We obtain a more elegant description of $`I_𝒜`$ if the row space of the matrix $`𝒜`$ contains the vector $`(1,\mathrm{},1)`$, for then the homogeneity of the binomial $`𝐱^𝐮𝐱^𝐯`$ follows from $`𝒜𝐮=𝒜𝐯`$. It is often useful to force this condition as follows.

Given a list $`𝒜`$ of exponent vectors in $`^n`$, the lift $`𝒜^+`$ of $`𝒜`$ to $`1\times ^n`$ is obtained be prepending a component of 1 to each vector in $`𝒜`$. That is,

$$𝒜^+:=\{(1,𝐦)𝐦𝒜\}$$

The matrix $`𝒜^+`$ is obtained from the matrix $`𝒜`$ by adding a new top row of 1s. For the hexagon, this is

$$𝒜^+=\left(\begin{array}{ccccccc}1& 1& 1& 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 1\\ 0& 1& 1& 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1& \hfill 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 1& \hfill 0& \hfill 1& \hfill 1\end{array}\right).$$

Here is the lifted hexagon (shaded)

Then $`Y_{𝒜^+}=\overline{\{[r,rt,rst,rs,rt^1,rs^1t^1,rs^1]r,s,t^\times \}}=Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

This lifting does not alter the projective toric variety. Indeed,

$`\phi _{𝒜^+}(t_0,t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)`$ $`=`$ $`[t_0𝐭^{𝐦_0},t_0𝐭^{𝐦_1},\mathrm{},t_0𝐭^𝐦_{\mathrm{}}]`$
$`=`$ $`[𝐭^{𝐦_0},𝐭^{𝐦_1},\mathrm{},𝐭^𝐦_{\mathrm{}}]`$
$`=`$ $`\phi _𝒜(t_1,\mathrm{},t_n),`$
and so $`Y_𝒜=Y_{𝒜^+}`$. The dimension of $`Y_𝒜`$ is one less than the dimension of the linear span of $`𝒜^+`$. Since $`I_𝒜=I_{𝒜^+}`$, we have

###### Theorem 2.2.

The toric ideal $`I_𝒜`$ is the linear span of all binomials $`𝐱^𝐮𝐱^𝐯`$ with $`𝒜^+𝐮=𝒜^+𝐯`$.

If $`𝐮^{1+\mathrm{}}`$, then we may write $`𝐮`$ uniquely as $`𝐮=𝐮^+𝐮^{}`$, where $`𝐮^+,𝐮^{}^{1+\mathrm{}}`$ but $`𝐮^+`$ and $`𝐮^{}`$ have no non-zero components in common. For example, if $`𝐮=(1,3,2,2,2,4)`$, then $`𝐮^+=(1,3,2,0,2,0)`$ and $`𝐮^{}=(0,0,0,2,0,4)`$. We describe a smaller set of binomials that generate $`I_𝒜`$. Let $`\text{ker}(𝒜)^{1+\mathrm{}}`$ be the kernel of the matrix $`𝒜`$.

###### Corollary 2.3.

$`I_𝒜=x^{𝐮^+}x^𝐮^{}𝐮\text{ker}(𝒜^+)`$.

Algorithms for computing toric ideals are implemented in the computer algebra systems Macaulay 2 \[Mac2\] and Singular \[SING\]. There are no simple formulas for a finite set of generators of a general toric ideal.

On the other hand, quadratic binomials in a toric ideal do have a simple geometric interpretation. Suppose that we have a relation of the form

(2.4)
$$𝐚+𝐛=𝐜+𝐝,\text{for }𝐚,𝐛,𝐜,𝐝\mathrm{\Delta }.$$

Such a relation comes from coincident midpoints of two line segments between lattice points in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. A relation (2.4) gives a vector $`𝐮\text{ker}(𝒜)`$ whose entries are 1 in the coordinates corresponding to $`𝐚`$ and $`𝐛`$ and $`1`$ in the coordinates corresponding to $`𝐜`$ and $`𝐝`$. The corresponding generator of the ideal $`I_𝒜`$ is $`abcd`$, where $`a`$ is the variable corresponding to the vector $`𝐚`$, $`b`$ the variable corresponding to $`𝐛`$, and etc.

Often these simple relations suffice. When $`n=2`$, Koelman \[Koe93\] showed that the ideal of a toric surface $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is generated by such quadratic binomials if the polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ has more than 3 lattice points on its boundary. Also, if a lattice polytope $`\mathrm{\Delta }^n`$ has the form $`n\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$, for a (smaller) lattice polytope $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$, then the toric ideal $`I_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is generated by such quadratic binomials for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ \[BGT97\].

###### Example 2.5.

Consider the ideal $`I_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the toric variety $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the hexagon of Example 1.4. Label the exponent vectors in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as indicated below.

There are 12 relations of the form (2.4): 6 involving the midpoint of the segment connecting $`𝐚`$ and one of the remaining vectors and 6 for the 3 antipodal pairs of points, which all share the midpoint $`𝐚`$. Translating these into quadratic relations gives 12 quadratic binomials in the toric ideal $`I_\mathrm{\Delta }`$

$`abcg,acbd,adce,aedf,afge,agbf,`$
$`a^2be,a^2gd,a^2cf,becf,begd,cfgd.`$
By Koelman’s Theorem, these generate $`I_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ has 6 vertices.

## 3. Linear Projections

Linear projections are key to the relationship between the toric varieties $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ introduced in Section 1 and Krasauskas’s toric patches \[Kra02\]. In geometric modeling, linear projections are encoded in the language of weights and control points. In algebraic geometry, linear projections provide the link between projective toric varieties $`Y_𝒜`$ and general rational varieties.

Given $`1+\mathrm{}`$ vectors $`𝐩_0,𝐩_1,\mathrm{},𝐩_{\mathrm{}}^{1+k}`$, we have the linear map $`^{1+\mathrm{}}^{1+k}`$

(3.1)
$$𝐱=(x_0,x_1,\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}})x_0𝐩_0+x_1𝐩_1+\mathrm{}+x_{\mathrm{}}𝐩_{\mathrm{}}^{1+k},$$

represented by the matrix whose columns are the vectors $`𝐩_i`$. Let $`E:=\{𝐱^{1+\mathrm{}}0=_ix_i𝐩_i\}`$ be the kernel of this map.

Let $`(E)`$ be the linear subspace of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ corresponding to $`E`$. Then (3.1) induces a map $`\pi `$ from the difference $`^{\mathrm{}}(E)`$ to $`^k`$, called a linear projection with center of projection $`(E)`$ (or central projection from $`(E)`$). We write

$$\pi :^{\mathrm{}}^k.$$

(In algebraic geometry, a broken arrow is used to represent such a rational map—a function that is not defined on all of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$.) The control points $`𝐛_0,\mathrm{},𝐛_{\mathrm{}}`$ of this projection are the images in $`^k`$ of the vectors $`𝐩_i`$.

Given a subvariety $`Y^{\mathrm{}}`$ that does not meet the center $`(E)`$, the linear projection $`\pi `$ restricts to give a map $`\pi :Y^k`$. Points where $`(E)`$ meets $`Y`$ are called basepoints of the projection $`Y^k`$.

###### Example 3.2.

A projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜^k`$ as defined in Section 1 is the image of the projective toric variety $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }^{\mathrm{}}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the convex hull of the exponent vectors $`𝒜^n`$. Recall that the coordinates of $`^k`$ are naturally indexed by the elements of $`𝒜`$ and those of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ by $`\mathrm{\Delta }^n`$. The projection simply ‘forgets’ the coordinates of points whose index does not lie in $`𝒜`$. What is not immediate from the definitions is that the projection

(3.3)
$$Y_\mathrm{\Delta }Y_𝒜$$

has no basepoints.

To see this, note that the center of this projection is defined by the vanishing of all coordinates of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ indexed by elements of $`𝒜`$. Any point $`𝐦\mathrm{\Delta }`$ that is not a vertex is a positive rational combination of the vertices $`𝐯`$ of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. That is, there are positive integers $`d_𝐦`$ and $`d_𝐯`$ for each vertex $`𝐯`$ of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ such that

$$d_𝐦𝐦=\underset{𝐯}{}d_𝐯𝐯,$$

and so we have the binomial in the toric ideal $`I_\mathrm{\Delta }`$

$$x_𝐦^{d_𝐦}\underset{𝐯}{}x_𝐯^{d_𝐯}$$

In particular, if a point $`𝐱Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ has a nonvanishing $`𝐦`$th coordinate ($`x_𝐦0`$), then some vertex coordinates $`x_𝐯`$ must also be nonvanishing. This shows that the map (3.3) has no basepoints.

This discussion also shows that the only basis vectors $`[0,\mathrm{},0,1,0,\mathrm{},0]`$ contained in a projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ are those indexed by the extreme points of $`𝒜`$—the vertices of the convex hull of $`𝒜`$.

###### Example 3.4.

Let $`𝐩_0,𝐩_1,\mathrm{},𝐩_n`$ be vectors in $`^{1+k}`$. Then the image $`Z`$ of the rational normal curve $`Y_{[n]}`$ of Example 1.2 under the corresponding linear projection is parametrized by

(3.5)
$$^1[s,t]s^n𝐩_0+s^{n1}t𝐩_1+\mathrm{}+t^n𝐩_n^k.$$

The map $`Y_{[n]}Z`$ has a basepoint at $`[s,t]^1`$ when the sum in (3.5) vanishes. Since each component of the sum is a homogeneous polynomial in $`s,t`$ of degree $`n`$, this implies that these $`1+k`$ polynomials share a common factor. When the polynomials have no common factor, $`Z`$ is a rational curve of degree $`n`$.

We consider an example of this when $`n=3`$ and $`k=2`$. Let $`(1,1,1)`$, $`(1,3,1)`$, $`(1,1,3)`$, and $`(1,1,1)^3`$ be the vectors $`𝐩_0,\mathrm{},𝐩_3`$ which determine a linear projection $`^3^2`$. Then the image curve $`Z`$ of the toric variety $`Y_{[3]}`$ is given parametrically as

$`z_0`$ $`=`$ $`s^3+s^2t+st^2+t^3,`$
$`z_1`$ $`=`$ $`s^33s^2tst^2+t^3,\text{and}`$
$`z_2`$ $`=`$ $`s^3s^2t+3st^2t^3.`$
If we set $`x=z_1/z_0`$ and $`y=z_2/z_0`$ to be coordinates for the principal affine part of $`^2`$, then this has implicit equation

$$y^2(x1)+2yx+x^2+x^3=0.$$

We plot the control points $`𝐛_i`$ and the curve in Figure 1.

## 4. Rational Varieties

Example 3.2 shows how the toric varieties $`Y_𝒜`$ and $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are related via special linear projections and Example 3.4 shows how rational curves are related to the rational normal curve. More general linear projections give rational varieties, which are varieties parametrized by some collection of polynomials.

###### Definition 4.1.

A rational variety $`Z^k`$ is the image of a projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ under a linear projection. The composition

$$(^{})^n\text{}\stackrel{\phi _𝒜}{}Y_𝒜Z$$

endows a rational variety $`Z`$ with a rational parametrization by polynomials whose monomials have exponent vectors in $`𝒜`$ and this parametrization is defined for (almost all) points in $`(^{})^n`$.

###### Remark 4.2.

The class of rational varieties is strictly larger than that of toric varieties. For example, the quartic rational plane curve whose rational parametrization and picture is shown below is not a toric variety—its three singular points prevent it from containing a dense torus.

$`x`$ $`=`$ $`t^4+7st^3+9s^2t^27s^3t10s^4`$
$`y`$ $`=`$ $`t^47st^3+9s^2t^2+7s^3t10s^4\text{}`$
$`z`$ $`=`$ $`3t^411s^2t^2+80s^4\text{}`$
This class of rational varieties contains the closures of the images of Bézier curves, triangular Bézier patches, tensor product surfaces, and Krasauskas’s toric patches \[Kra02\]. We give another example based upon the hexagon of Example 1.4.

###### Example 4.3.

Consider a projection $`^6^3`$ where the points $`𝐩_i`$ corresponding to the vertices $`\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{0}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{1}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{0}{1}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{0}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{1}{1}\right],\left[\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{0}{1}\right]`$ of the hexagon are the following points in $`^4`$ taken in order:

$$(1,1,0,0),(1,1,1,0),(1,0,1,0),(1,0,1,1),(1,0,0,1),(1,1,0,1)$$

and suppose that the center of the hexagon corresponds to the point $`(1,1,1,1)`$. In coordinates $`[w,x,y,z]`$ for $`^3`$, this has the rational parametrization.

$`w`$ $`=`$ $`1+s+st+t+s^1+s^1t^1+t^1`$
$`x`$ $`=`$ $`1+s+st+t^1`$
$`y`$ $`=`$ $`1+st+t+s^1`$
$`z`$ $`=`$ $`1+s^1+s^1t^1+t^1`$
Here are two views of (part of) the resulting rational surface and the axes.

As a subset of $`^3`$, this is defined by a the vanishing of a single homogeneous polynomial of degree 6 with 72 terms

$`112w^6240(x+y+z)w^5+296(xy+xz+yz)w^4+216(x^2+y^2+z^2)w^4`$

$`92(x^3+y^3+z^3)w^3124(x^2y+xy^2+x^2z+xz^2+y^2z+yz^2)w^3568xyzw^3`$

$`+4(x^4+y^4+z^4)w^2+70(x^3y+xy^3+x^3z+xz^3+y^3z+yz^3)w^2`$

$`125(x^2y^2+x^2z^2+y^2z^2)w^2+272(x^2yz+xy^2z+xyz^2)w^2`$

$`2(x^4y+xy^4+x^4z+xz^4+y^4z+yz^4)w141(x^3yz+xy^3z+xyz^3)w`$

$`+35(x^3y^2+x^2y^3+x^3z^2+x^2z^3+y^3z^2+y^2z^3)w7(x^2y^2z+x^2yz^2+xy^2z^2)w`$

$`+5(x^4yz+xy^4z+xyz^4)+19(x^3y^2z+x^3yz^2+x^2y^3z+x^2yz^3+xy^3z^2+xy^2z^3)`$

$`50x^2y^2z^213(x^3y^3+x^3z^3+y^3z^3)2(x^4y^2+x^2y^4+x^4z^2+x^2z^4+y^4z^2+y^2z^4)`$

The symmetry of this polynomial in the variables $`x,y,z`$ is due to the symmetry of the hexagon and of the control points.

In these two examples, the toric ideals of the varieties $`Y_𝒜`$ were generated by quadratic binomials, while the resulting rational varieties were hypersurfaces defined by polynomials of degrees 4 and 6 respectively. These examples show that the ideal of a rational variety may be rather complicated. Nevertheless, this ideal can be computed quite reasonably either from the original toric ideal and the projection or from the resulting parametrization. (See Sections 3.2 and 3.3 of \[CLO97\] for details.)

## 5. Implicit Degree of a Toric Variety

The (implicit) degree of a hypersurface (e.g. planar curve or a surface in $`^3`$) is the degree of its implicit equation. Similarly, the degree of a rational curve $`𝐟:^1^k`$ is the degree of the components of its parametrization $`𝐟`$. Projective varieties with greater dimension and codimension also have a degree that is well-behaved under linear projection, and this degree is readily determined for toric varieties.

###### Definition 5.1.

Let $`X^{\mathrm{}}`$ be an algebraic variety of dimension $`n`$. The degree of $`X`$, $`\text{deg}(X)`$, is the number of points common to $`X`$ and to a general linear subspace $`L`$ of dimension $`\mathrm{}n`$. Such a linear subspace is defined by $`n`$ linear equations and so the degree of $`X`$ is also the number of (complex) solutions to $`n`$ general linear equations on $`X`$.

###### Remark 5.2.

This notion of degree agrees with the usual notions for hypersurfaces and for rational curves. Suppose that $`X^{\mathrm{}}`$ is a hypersurface with implicit equation $`f=0`$ where $`f`$ has degree $`d`$. Restricting $`f`$ to a line $`L`$ and identifying $`L`$ with $`^1`$ gives a polynomial of degree $`d`$ on $`^1`$ whose zeroes correspond to the points of $`XL`$. If $`L`$ is general then there will be $`d`$ distinct roots of this polynomial, showing the equality $`\mathrm{deg}(X)=\mathrm{deg}(f)`$, as $`\mathrm{deg}(X)`$ is $`\mathrm{\#}LX`$ which equals $`d=\mathrm{deg}(f)`$.

Similarly, suppose that $`X^{\mathrm{}}`$ is a rational curve of degree $`d`$. Then it has a parametrization $`𝐟:^1X^{\mathrm{}}`$ where the components of $`𝐟`$ are homogeneous polynomials of degree $`d`$. A hyperplane $`L`$ in $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ is defined by a single linear equation $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝐱)=0`$. Then the points of $`XL`$ correspond to the zeroes of the polynomial $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝐟)`$, which has degree $`d`$ (when $`L`$ does not contain the image of $`𝐟`$).

If $`\pi :^{\mathrm{}}^k`$ is a surjective linear projection with center $`(E)`$, then the inverse image of a linear subspace $`K^k`$ of dimension $`kn`$ is a linear subspace $`L`$ of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ of dimension $`\mathrm{}n`$ that contains the center $`(E)`$. This implies that the degree of a projective variety is reasonably well-behaved under linear projection. We give the precise statement.

###### Theorem 5.3.

Let $`\pi :^{\mathrm{}}^k`$ be a linear projection with center $`(E)`$ and $`Y^{\mathrm{}}`$. Suppose that $`\pi (Y)`$ has the same dimension as does $`Y`$. Then

$$\mathrm{deg}(\pi (Y))\mathrm{deg}(Y),$$

with equality when the map $`\pi :Y\pi (Y)`$ has no basepoints and is one-to-one.

These conditions are satisfied for a general linear projection if $`dimY<k`$.

Thus rational varieties $`Z`$ that have an injective (one-to-one) parametrization given by a map $`\pi :Y_𝒜Z`$ with no basepoints will have the same degree as the projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$. This degree is nicely expressed in terms of the convex hull $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the exponent vectors $`𝒜`$.

###### Theorem 5.4.

The implicit degree of a toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ is

$$n!\text{Vol}(\mathrm{\Delta }),$$

where $`\text{Vol}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ is the usual Euclidean volume of the $`n`$-dimensional polytope $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

Thus the degree of a rational variety $`Z`$ parametrized by polynomials whose monomials have exponents from a set $`𝒜`$ whose convex hull is $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is at most $`n!\text{Vol}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$, with equality when the parametrization $`\pi :Y_𝒜Z`$ has no basepoints and is one-to-one (injective). This is what we saw in the examples of Section 4. The polytope of the quartic curve is a line segment of length, and hence volume, 4, while the hexagon whose corresponding monomials parameterize the rational surface of Example 4.3 has area 3, and $`2!3=6`$, which is the degree of its implicit equation.

This determination of the degree of the toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ is an important result due to Kouchnirenko \[BKK76\] concerning the solutions of sparse equations. One of the equivalent definitions of the degree of $`Y_𝒜`$ is the number of solutions to $`n`$ ($`=dim(Y_𝒜)`$) equations on $`Y_𝒜^{\mathrm{}}`$. Under the parametrization $`\phi _𝒜`$ (1.1) of $`Y_𝒜`$, these linear equations become Laurent polynomials on $`(^{})^n`$ whose monomials have exponent vectors in $`𝒜`$. Thus the degree of $`Y_𝒜`$ is equal to the number of solutions in $`(^{})^n`$ to $`n`$ general Laurent polynomials whose monomials have exponent vectors in $`𝒜`$.

This result of Kouchnirenko was generalized by Bernstein \[Ber75\] who determined the number of solutions in $`(^{})^n`$ to $`n`$ general Laurent polynomials with possibly different sets of exponent vectors. In that, the rôle of the volume is played by the mixed volume. For more, see the contribution of Rojas \[Roj03\] to these proceedings.

## 6. The Real Part of a Toric Variety

Bézier curves and surface patches in geometric modeling are parametrizations of some of the real part of a rational variety. We discuss the real part of a toric variety and of rational varieties, with respect to their usual real structure. Some toric varieties admit exotic real structures, a topic covered in the article by Delaunay \[Del03\] that also appears in this volume.

###### Definition 6.1.

The (standard) real part of a toric variety is defined by replacing the complex numbers $``$ by the real numbers $``$ everywhere in the given definitions.

For example, consider the projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$, defined as a subset of projective space $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ by the toric ideal $`I_𝒜`$ (equivalently, as the closure of the image of $`\phi _𝒜`$ (1.1)). Then the real part $`Y_𝒜()`$ of $`Y_𝒜`$ is the intersection of $`Y_𝒜`$ with $`^{\mathrm{}}`$, that is, the subset of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ defined by the toric ideal. Recall that $`I_𝒜`$ is generated by binomials $`𝐱^𝐮𝐱^𝐯`$, which are real polynomials.

Suppose that we have a linear projection $`\pi :^{\mathrm{}}^k`$ defined by real points $`𝐩_i^{1+k}`$. Then the rational variety $`Z`$ (the image of $`Y_𝒜`$ under $`\pi `$) has ideal $`I(Z)`$ generated by real polynomials. The real part $`Z()`$ of $`Z`$ is the subset of $`^k`$ defined by the ideal $`I(Z)`$. This again coincides with the intersection of $`Z`$ with $`^k`$. All pictures in this tutorial arise in this fashion. When the map $`\pi `$ has no basepoints and $`\pi :Y_𝒜Z`$ is one-to-one at almost all points of $`Z`$, then $`\pi (Y_𝒜())=Z()`$.

The reason for this is that when $`x^k`$, the points in $`\pi ^1(x)Y_𝒜`$ are the solution to a system of equations with real coefficients. Since the map $`\pi `$ is one-to-one on $`Y_𝒜`$, this system has a single solution that is necessarily real. If $`\pi `$ is not one-to-one, then we may have $`\pi (Y_𝒜())Z()`$. For example, when $`𝒜`$ is a line segment of length 2, $`Y_𝒜`$ is the parabola $`\{[1,x,x^2]x\}^2`$. The projection to $`^1`$ omitting the second coordinate (which is basepoint-free) is the two-to-one map

$$x[1,x^2]^1$$

whose restriction to $``$ has image the nonnegative part of the real toric variety $`^1`$.

This description does little to aid our intuition about the real part of a toric variety or a rational variety. We obtain a more concrete picture of the real points of a toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ and an alternative construction of $`Y_𝒜()`$ if we first describe the real points of an abstract toric variety $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. For this, we recall the definition of the abstract toric variety $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ associated to a fan $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, as described by Cox \[Cox03\].

Let $`\sigma ^n`$ be a strongly convex rational polyhedral cone with dual cone $`\sigma ^{}^n`$. Lattice points $`𝐦\sigma ^{}^n`$ are exponent vectors of Laurent monomials $`𝐭^𝐦`$ defined on $`(^{})^n`$. The affine toric variety $`U_\sigma `$ corresponding to $`\sigma `$ is constructed by first choosing a finite generating set $`𝐦_1,𝐦_2,\mathrm{},𝐦_{\mathrm{}}`$ of the additive semigroup $`\sigma ^{}^n`$. These define the map

$`\phi :(^{})^n`$ $``$ $`^{\mathrm{}}`$
$`𝐭`$ $``$ $`(𝐭^{𝐦_1},𝐭^{𝐦_2},\mathrm{},𝐭^𝐦_{\mathrm{}}),`$
and we set $`U_\sigma `$ to be the closure of the image of this map. The real part $`U_\sigma ()`$ of this affine toric variety is simply the intersection of $`U_\sigma `$ with $`^{\mathrm{}}`$.

The intersection $`\sigma \tau `$ of two cones $`\sigma ,\tau `$ in a fan $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is a face of each cone and $`U_{\sigma \tau }`$ is naturally a subset of both $`U_\sigma `$ and $`U_\tau `$. The toric variety $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is obtained by gluing together $`U_\sigma `$ and $`U_\tau `$ along their common subset $`U_{\sigma \tau }`$, for all cones $`\sigma ,\tau `$ in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The real part $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }()`$ of $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is similarly obtained by piecing together the real parts $`U_\sigma ()`$ and $`U_\tau ()`$ along their common subset $`U_{\sigma \tau }()`$, for all $`\sigma ,\tau `$ in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

Since the origin $`\mathrm{𝟎}^n`$ lies in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\mathrm{𝟎}^{}=^n`$, the affine toric variety $`U_\mathrm{𝟎}^{}`$ is the torus $`(^{})^n`$, which is a common subset of each $`U_\sigma `$. This torus is dense in the toric variety $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and it acts on $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Similarly, the torus $`(^{})^n`$ is dense in $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }()`$ and it acts on $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }()`$. This torus $`(^{})^n`$ has $`2^n`$ components called orthants, each identified by the sign vector $`\epsilon \{\pm 1\}^n`$ recording the signs of coordinates of points in that component. The identity component is the orthant containing the identity, and it has sign vector $`(1,1,\mathrm{},1)`$. Write $`_>^n`$ for this identity component.

###### Definition 6.2.

The non-negative part $`X_{}`$ of a toric variety $`X`$ is the closure (in $`X()`$) of the identity component $`_>^n`$ of $`(^{})^n`$. The boundary of $`X_{}`$ is defined to be the difference $`X_{}_>^n`$.

We could also consider the closures of other components of the torus $`(^{})^n`$, obtaining $`2^n`$ other pieces analogous to this non-negative part $`X_{}`$. Since the component of $`(^{})^n`$ having sign vector $`\epsilon `$ is simply $`\epsilon _>^n`$, these other pieces are translates of $`X_{}`$ by the appropriate sign vector, and hence all are isomorphic. Since $`X()`$ is the closure of $`(^{})^n`$ and each piece $`\epsilon X_{}`$ is the closure of the orthant $`\epsilon _>^n`$, we obtain a concrete picture of $`X()`$: it is pieced together from $`2^n`$ copies of this non-negative part $`X_{}`$ glued together along their common boundaries.

The non-negative part of the toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ is simply the intersection of $`Y_𝒜`$ with the non-negative part of the ambient projective space $`^{\mathrm{}}`$, those points with non-negative homogeneous coordinates

$$\{[x_0,x_1,\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}}]x_i0\}.$$

The boundary of $`(Y_𝒜)_{}`$ is its intersection with the coordinate hyperplanes, which are defined by the vanishing of at least one homogeneous coordinate.

###### Example 6.3.

The surface of Example 4.3 is the image of the toric variety $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the hexagon of Example 1.4. Figure 2 shows the image of the non-negative part of $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The control points are the spheres (dots) and the boundary consists of the thickened lines.

The six control points corresponding to the vertices of the hexagon lie on the non-negative part of $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The seventh control point corresponding to the center of the hexagon appears in the lower right. It lies in the octant opposite to the non-negative part of $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and causes $`Y_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ to ‘bulge’ towards the origin.

## 7. The Double Pillow

We devote this section to the construction of the toric variety $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }()`$ for a single example, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the normal fan of the cross polytope $`\mathrm{}^2`$. As remarked in Section 13 of \[Cox03\], $`X_\mathrm{\Sigma }Y_{\mathrm{}}`$ as $`\mathrm{}`$ is 2-dimensional. Krasauskas \[Kra02\] calls the corresponding toric surface the ‘pillow with antennae’. We display $`\mathrm{}`$ together with its normal fan $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, with one of its full-dimensional cones shaded.

(7.1)
Each full-dimensional cone $`\sigma `$ is self-dual and they are all isomorphic. Thus $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$ ($`=X_\mathrm{\Sigma }()`$) is obtained by gluing together four isomorphic affine toric varieties $`U_\sigma ()`$, as $`\sigma `$ ranges over the 2-dimensional cones in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. A complete picture of the gluing involves the affine varieties $`U_\tau ()`$, where $`\tau `$ is one of the rays of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. We next describe these two toric varieties $`U_\sigma ()`$ and $`U_\tau ()`$, for $`\sigma `$ a 2-dimensional cone and $`\tau `$ a ray of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

Let $`\sigma `$ be the shaded cone in (7.1). Since $`\sigma =\sigma ^{}`$, we see that $`\sigma ^{}^2`$ is minimally generated by the vectors $`(1,1),(1,0)`$, and $`(1,1)`$, and so $`U_\sigma ()`$ is the closure in $`^3`$ of the image of the map

$$\phi :(s,t)(st^1,st,s),$$

which is defined by the equation $`xy=z^2`$ (where $`(x,y,z)`$ are the coordinates for $`^3`$). This is a right circular cone in $`^3`$, which we display below at left.

Let $`\tau `$ be the ray generated by $`(1,1)`$, which is a face of $`\sigma `$. Then $`\tau ^{}`$ is the half-space $`\{(u,v)^2u+v0\}`$, which is the union of both 2-dimensional cones in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ containing $`\tau `$. Since $`\tau ^{}^2`$ has generators $`(1,1),(1,1)`$, and $`(1,0)`$, we see that $`U_\tau ()`$ is the closure in $`^3`$ of the image of the map

$$\phi :(s,t)(st^1,s^1t,s),$$

which has equation $`xy=1`$. This is the cylinder with base the hyperbola $`xy=1`$, which is shown above at right.

We describe the gluing. We know that $`U_\tau ()U_\sigma ()`$ and they both contain the torus $`(^{})^2`$. This common torus is their intersection with the complement of the coordinate planes, $`xyz0`$, and their boundaries are their intersections with the coordinate planes. The boundary of the cylinder is the curve $`z=0`$ and $`xy=1`$, which is defined by $`s=0`$ and displayed on the picture of $`U_\tau ()`$. Also, $`t0`$ on the cylinder. The boundary of the cone is the union of the $`x`$ and $`y`$ axes. Since $`t^2=y/x`$ on the cone, the locus where $`t=0`$ is the $`x`$ axis. Thus $`U_\tau ()`$ is naturally identified with the complement of the $`x`$ axis in $`U_\sigma ()`$ where the curve $`z=0,xy=1`$ in $`U_\tau ()`$ is identified with the $`y`$-axis in $`U_\sigma ()`$.

If $`\tau ^{}`$ is the other ray defining $`\sigma `$, then $`U_\tau ^{}()`$ ($`U_\tau ()`$) is identified with the complement of the $`y`$ axis in $`U_\sigma ()`$. A convincing understanding of this gluing procedure is obtained by considering the rational surface $`Z`$ in $`^3`$ which is the image of the toric variety $`Y_{\mathrm{}}(^3)`$ under the projection map given by the points $`(1,\pm 1,0,0)`$ and $`(1,0,\pm 1,0)`$ associated to the vertices $`(\pm 1,0)`$ and $`(0,\pm 1)`$ of $`\mathrm{}`$, and $`(0,0,0,1)`$ associated to its center. We display this surface in Figure 3.

This surface has the implicit equation

$$(x^2y^2)^22x^2w^22y^2w^216z^2w^2+w^4=0.$$

and its dense torus has parametrization

$$[w,x,y,z]=[s+t+\frac{1}{s}+\frac{1}{t},s\frac{1}{s},t\frac{1}{t},1].$$

It has curves of self-intersection along the lines $`x=\pm y`$ in the plane at infinity ($`w=0`$). As the self-intersection is at infinity, this affine surface is a good illustration of the toric variety $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$, and so we refer to this picture to describe $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$.

This surface contains 4 lines $`x\pm y=\pm 1`$ and their complement is the dense torus in $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$. The complement of any three lines is the piece $`U_\tau ()`$ corresponding to a ray $`\tau `$. Each of the four singular points is a singular point of one cone $`U_\sigma ()`$, which is obtained by removing the two lines not meeting that singular point. Finally, the action of the group $`\{(\pm 1,\pm 1)\}`$ on $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$ may also be seen from this picture. Each singular point is fixed by this group. The element $`(1,1)`$ sends $`zz`$, interchanging the top and bottom halves of each piece, while the elements $`(1,1)`$ and $`(1,1)`$ interchange the central ‘pillow’ with the rest of $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$. In this way, we see that $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$ is a ‘double pillow’.

The non-negative part of $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$ is also readily determined from this picture. The upper part of the middle pillow is the part of $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$ parametrized by $`_>^2`$, and so its closure is just a square, but with singular corners obtained by cutting a cone into two pieces along a plane of symmetry. In fact, the orthogonal projection to the $`xy`$ plane identifies this non-negative part with the cross polytope $`\mathrm{}`$. From the symmetry of this surface, we see that $`Y_{\mathrm{}}()`$ is obtained by gluing four copies of cross polytope $`\mathrm{}`$ together along their edges to form two pillows attached at their corners. (The four ‘antennae’ are actually the truncated corners of the second pillow—projective geometry can play tricks on our affine intuition.)

## 8. Linear Precision and the Algebraic Moment Map

We observed that the non-negative part of the toric variety $`Y_{\mathrm{}}`$ can be identified with $`\mathrm{}`$. The non-negative part of any projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ admits an identification with the convex hull $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of $`𝒜`$. One way to realize this identification is through the moment map and algebraic moment map of a toric variety $`Y_𝒜\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

###### Definition 8.1.

Let $`Y_𝒜^{\mathrm{}}`$ be a projective toric variety given by a collection of exponent vectors $`𝒜^n`$ with convex hull $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The torus $`(^{})^n`$ acts on $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ and on $`Y_𝒜`$ via the map $`\phi _𝒜`$. To such an action, symplectic geometry associates a moment map $`\mu _𝒜:𝒜^n`$,

(8.2)
$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill \mu _𝒜& :& Y_𝒜\hfill & & ^n\hfill \\ & & 𝐱\hfill & & \frac{1}{_{𝐦𝒜}|x_𝐦(𝐱)|^2}\underset{𝐦𝒜}{}|x_𝐦(𝐱)|^2𝐦.\hfill \end{array}$$

While the restriction of coordinate function $`x_𝐦`$ on $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ to $`Y_𝒜`$ is not a well-defined function, the collection of these coordinate functions is well-defined up to a common scalar factor. It is a basic theorem of symplectic geometry that the image of the moment map is the polytope $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and the restriction of $`\mu _𝒜`$ to the non-negative part of $`(Y_𝒜)_{}`$ is a homeomorphism.

More useful to us is the following variant of $`\mu _𝒜`$, where we do not square the coordinate functions,

(8.3)
$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\hfill \alpha _𝒜& :& Y_𝒜\hfill & & ^n\hfill \\ & & 𝐱\hfill & & \frac{1}{_{𝐦𝒜}|x_𝐦(𝐱)|}\underset{𝐦𝒜}{}|x_𝐦(𝐱)|𝐦.\hfill \end{array}$$

This map is very similar to the moment map, and thus is often confused with the moment mapfootnotetext: This confusion occurred in the published version of this manuscript.

###### Remark 8.4.

Suppose that $`𝒜=\{𝐦_0,𝐦_1,\mathrm{},𝐦_{\mathrm{}}\}^n`$. We claim that on $`(Y_𝒜)_{}`$, the map (8.3) coincides with the linear projection $`\pi _𝒜:^{\mathrm{}}^n`$ defined by the points in the lift $`𝒜^+`$ of $`𝒜`$:

$$(1,𝐦_0),(1,𝐦_1),\mathrm{},(1,𝐦_{\mathrm{}})^{1+n}.$$

Indeed, we have

$$\pi _𝒜(𝐱)=\pi _𝒜([x_0,x_1,\mathrm{},x_{\mathrm{}}])=\underset{i=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}x_i[1,𝐦_i]=[_ix_i,_ix_i𝐦_i].$$

If $`𝐱`$ lies in the non-negative part of the projective toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$, then each coordinate $`x_i`$ of $`𝐱`$ is non-negative with $`x_i=x_{𝐦_i}`$. Since $`_ix_i>0`$, this shows that $`\pi _𝒜(𝐱)=[1,\alpha _𝒜(𝐱)]`$, and thus the map (8.3) coincides with the projection $`\pi _𝒜`$ on the non-negative part of $`Y_𝒜`$.

It is for these reasons that we call the linear projection $`\pi _𝒜`$ the algebraic moment map.

This algebraic moment map shares an important property of the moment map.

###### Theorem 8.5.

The non-negative part $`(Y_𝒜)_{}`$ of the toric variety $`Y_𝒜`$ is homeomorphic to the convex hull $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of $`𝒜`$ under the algebraic moment map.

The nature of this homeomorphism is subtle. If the polytope $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is smooth (that is, the shortest integer vectors normal to the faces that meet at a vertex always form a basis for $`^n`$), then every point of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ has a neighborhood in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ homeomorphic to $`^k\times _{}^{nk}`$, and so we call $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ a manifold with corners. In general, a polytope $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a manifold with ‘singular corners’. It is this structure that is preserved by the homeomorphism of Theorem 8.5. (For more on the algebraic moment map and the structure of $`X_{}`$ as a manifold with singular corners, see Section 4 of Fulton’s book on toric varieties \[Ful93\], where he call $`\alpha _𝒜`$ the moment map.)

Theorem 8.5 explains why toric patches are of interest in geometric modeling. Since the non-negative part of a projective toric surface is homeomorphic to a polygon, any rational surface parametrized by that toric surface has a non-negative part that is the image of that polygon. In this way, we can obtain multi-sided surface patches from toric surfaces. This theorem not only explains the geometry of such toric patches, but we use it to gain insight into parametrizations of toric patches by the corresponding polytopes.

Let $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ be the convex hull of a set of exponent vectors $`𝒜`$. By Theorem 8.5, $`(Y_𝒜)_{}`$ is homeomorphic to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and so there exists a parametrization of $`(Y_𝒜)_{}`$ by $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ preserving their structures as manifolds with ‘singular corners’. From the point of view of algebraic geometry, the most natural such parametrization is the inverse of the algebraic moment map $`\alpha _𝒜^1:\mathrm{\Delta }(Y_𝒜)_{}`$. This is also the most natural from the point of view of geometric modeling.

###### Theorem 8.6.

The coordinate functions of $`\alpha _𝒜^1`$ have linear precision.

A collection of liinearly independent functions $`\{f_𝐦𝐦𝒜\}`$ defined on the convex hull $`\mathrm{\Delta }^n`$ of $`𝒜`$ has linear precision if, for any affine function $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ defined on $`^n`$,

(8.7)
$$\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝐮)=\underset{𝐦𝒜}{}\mathrm{\Lambda }(𝐦)f_𝐦(𝐮)\text{for all }𝐮\mathrm{\Delta }.$$

Theorem 8.6 follows immediately from this definition. The functions $`\{f_𝐦𝐦𝒜\}`$ define a map $`𝐟`$ from $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ to $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ in the natural coordinates of $`^{\mathrm{}}`$ indexed by the exponent vectors in $`𝒜`$. Then the right hand side of (8.7) is the result of applying the linear function $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ to the composition

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{𝐟}{}(Y_𝒜)_{}\stackrel{\pi _𝒜}{}\mathrm{\Delta },$$

where $`\pi _𝒜`$ is the linear projection of Remark 8.4, which restricts to give the moment map on $`(Y_𝒜)_{}`$. Then linear precision of the components of $`𝐟`$ is simply the statement that $`𝐟`$ is the inverse of the algebraic moment map.


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# Comparison of relativistic bound-state calculations in Front-Form and Instant-Form Dynamics

## 1 Introduction

Dirac’s paper on forms of relativistic dynamics  made it clear that the real difficulty of constructing a Hamiltonian theory of interacting particles that satisfies the requirements of special relativity, is finding the proper form of the interactions. This problem can be solved in a natural way by resorting to covariant field theory. Then the construction of all generators of the Poincaré group can be found in any textbook on quantum field theory. However, the results given have usually a formal meaning only and much work needs to be done to turn them into useful formulas. In particular, drastic approximations need to be taken, which may or may not be justified. An approximation that at first sight looks very attractive is to expand the states of the sytem under consideration into Fock states and truncate the expansion at a reasonable point. Doing so, one obtains a quantum-mechanical many-body problem and can use the powerfull machinery that has been developed for many-body systems.

The success of Fock-space methods depends crucially on the properties of the vacuum. Only if one can build on a simple vacuum the Fock-space expansion is useful. The condition that the vacuum be simple limits the choice of forms of dynamics in the framework of quantum field theory essentially to the front form, also known as light-front dynamics (LFD). In this form three components of the four momentum, $`p^1`$, $`p^2`$, and $`p^+=(p^0+p^3)/\sqrt{2}`$, are independent of the interaction, while $`p^{}=(p^0p^3)/\sqrt{2}`$ contains interaction and is for this reason said to be a dynamical operator. The variable $`x^+=(x^0+x^3)/\sqrt{2}`$ that is conjugate to $`p^{}`$, is the evolution parameter of states and consequently denoted as light-front time. The dispersion relation of energy and momentum for a particle with mass $`m`$ takes the form $`p^{}=(\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2)/(2p^+)`$, $`\stackrel{}{p}_{}=(p^1,p^2)`$. One sees immediately that states of positive and negative energy can be separated kinematically, as positive energy and positive $`p^+`$ are strictly disconnected. This property is called the spectrum property. In instant-form dynamics (IFD) where $`p^0`$ is the dynamical component of the four momentum, the energy may be either positive or negative, independent of the three momentum. An immediate consequence of the spectrum property is that massive particles cannot be created from the vacuum in LFD. This is strictly speaking not enough to reduce the true vacuum to the perturbative Fock vacuum in LFD and usually, in order to make progress, one makes the additional assumption that zero modes, states where all particles have $`p^+=0`$, are decoupled. In this paper we shall also make this assumption. For an extensive review of many aspects of LFD we refer to Brodsky et al. .

Adopting LFD we still may consider other forms of dynamics, in particular IFD, for comparison. Even though it is difficult to justify IFD in a genuine field theoretical setting, to be distinguished from a situation where binding energies are very much smaller than particle masses, it remains to be seen what the quantitative differences are between the results obtained in LFD and IFD respectively. On the level of calculating invariant amplitudes in a Hamiltonian approach the situation is clear. One can obtain the time-ordered amplitudes, i.e., those that one calculates in LFD or IFD, by integrating Feynman amplitudes over the relative energy variable, $`k^{}`$ in LFD and $`k^0`$ in IFD. Schoonderwoerd et al.  have shown in Yukawa theory that the difference between the covariant box diagram and the ladder approximation to it in LFD is much smaller that in IFD. As this result is obtained for the box diagram with external particles on mass shell and initial and final state on the energy shell, one cannot immediately conclude that in a bound-state calculation LFD in the ladder approximation would be closer to a covariant calculation than IFD. In this paper we show our results in the simplest possible case, the Wick-Cutkosky model (WC) . (This model has been reviewed extensively by Nakanishi .)

The WC-model is concerned with two scalar fields, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\varphi `$, of masses $`m`$ and $`\mu `$ respectively, with a coupling $`g\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }\varphi `$. The original WC-model has $`\mu =0`$. We study the bound-state spectrum and wave functions for a range of coupling-constant values $`g`$. Because in LFD, contrary to IFD, the components $`L_x`$ and $`L_y`$ of the orbital angular momentum operator $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ contain interactions, manifest rotational invariance is broken in LFD. This means that if a truncation in Fock space is made, the observables, in particular the masses of the bound states, will depend on the orientation of the light front. Below we explain how this violation of rotational invariance manifests itself in our calculations.

It is well known that the WC-model exhibits $`O(4)`$ symmetry, like the nonrelativistic hydrogen atom. This symmetry shows up as a degeneracy of the levels of different orbital angular momentum $`l`$. We study the breaking of this symmetry due to the ladder approximation, which amounts to the truncation to the two- and three-body sectors in Fock space. The violation of $`O(4)`$ symmetry cannot be expected to occur in LFD only and we show here, for the first time, that it also occurs in IFD.

The WC-model is popular because it avoids the complications of spin and an exact solution of the Bethe-Salpeter equation is known in the case that the mass of the two-body bound state vanishes. Moreover, Cutkosky  gives numerical results for the spectrum in a range of values of the coupling constant. Recently, Mangin-Brinet et al.  calculated the ground state of the WC-model in so-called covariant LFD, also making the ladder approximation. Ji and Furnstahl  estimated the masses of the 1S and 2P states in the WC-model using a variational Ansatz for the two-body wave function in LFD, for small values of the coupling constant. Ding and Darewych  also used variational techniques to calculate the ground state of the WC-model. In the end, they solve an equation with a kernel that does not depend on the mass of state, which may explain the fact that there masses lie much below the masses found either in the Bethe-Salpeter formalism or in the other Hamiltonian calculations.

Several authors have extended the WC-model by adopting a nonvanishing mass $`\mu `$ for the exchanged particle. We mention in particular Cooke et al. , Nieuwenhuis and Tjon , and again Refs. . In all these works the ratio $`\mu /m=0.15`$ close to the ratio of the pion to the proton mass was taken, making these investigations relevant for the deuteron.

We consider our work as a necessary step to the treatment of more realistic models, e.g., the Yukawa model. In this domain Głazek et al.  have done important pioneering work in LFD. Fuda et al.  constructed one-boson-exchange models for the nucleon-nucleon and the pion-nucleon interactions. In the latter case an LFD calculation was compared to an IFD one. Contrary to what we do, these authors fit the parameters in the two distinct forms of dynamics separately to the experimental data, while we keep the model parameters fixed and compare the spectra.

This paper is organized as follows. In Sec.2 we give the details of the model we use and the expressions for the mass operators. Next we write down the effective two-body equations valid when Fock space is truncated to the two- and three-particle sectors. In addition we do not take self-energy terms into account, which would require a discussion of renormalization, which we want to avoid here. We do not give a detailed derivation of our equations, as e.g. Głazek et al.  have done so in much detail for the Yukawa model and it is easy to adapt their methods to the case of scalar particles. In Sec.3 we turn to the delicate question how to estimate the orbital angular momentum of a state in LFD, knowing that rotational invariance is broken. For the purpose of characterizing the states we rely on Terent’ev’s transformation , which is known to be exact for states on the energy shell . For bound states, which are by definition not on shell, this transformation can only give tentative results. The next section contains the details of our numerical methods and in Sec.5 we give the masses and the wave functions we found. Finally we discuss our results and draw conclusions.

## 2 Derivation of bound-state equations in the used model

We use the Wick-Cutkosky model to describe the dynamics of two scalar particles of opposite charge exchanging a neutral scalar particle. In the original model by Wick and Cutkosky  the exchanged particle is massless. It is possible to extend this model to a version where particles with a certain mass are exchanged. In our model we have taken bosons of equal mass $`m`$ and an exchanged particle of mass $`\mu `$, which may vanish. The Lagrangian for this system is given by:

$``$ $`=`$ $`_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^{}^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }m^2\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi {\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{2}}\varphi ^2g\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi },`$ (1)
where $`g`$ is the coupling constant, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ the charged field of the bosons of mass $`m`$ and $`\varphi `$ the field of the exchanged particle.

In both forms of dynamics we have used a field theoretical method to derive the bound-state equation from this Lagrangian. In LFD there is also the possibility to make use of the so-called explicitly covariant light-front formalism (eg. Ref. ). The bound-state equations in both methods are written in different coordinates, but it can be shown via a coordinate transformation that the equations are the same.

Through the energy-momentum tensor it is possible to find an expression for the Hamiltonian. In LFD the Hamiltonian is given by:

$`P^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle [\mathrm{d}^3x]\left[^{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{}^{}\mathrm{\Phi }+m^2\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }+\frac{1}{2}^{}\varphi ^{}\varphi +\frac{\mu ^2}{2}\varphi ^2+g\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }\right]}.`$ (2)
Here $`^{}=(^1,^2)`$ and the integration element $`[\mathrm{d}^3x]=\mathrm{d}x^{}\mathrm{d}^2x^{}`$.

In IFD the Hamiltonian is given by:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }\mathrm{d}^3x[^0\mathrm{\Phi }^{}^0\mathrm{\Phi }+\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\stackrel{}{}\mathrm{\Phi }+m^2\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }`$ (3)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^0\varphi ^0\varphi +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\stackrel{}{}\varphi )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{2}}\varphi ^2+g\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }].`$
Here the integration element $`\mathrm{d}^3x`$ is defined as $`\mathrm{d}^3x=\mathrm{d}x^1\mathrm{d}x^2\mathrm{d}x^3`$, as usual.

Following the standard procedures explained in Ref.  for LFD and Ref.  for IFD, we can expand the free fields $`\varphi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ as follows

$`\varphi (x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \{\mathrm{d}^3k\}\left(a(k)e^{ikx}+a^{}(k)e^{ikx}\right)},`$ (4)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \{\mathrm{d}^3k\}\left(b(k)e^{ikx}+d^{}(k)e^{ikx}\right)}.`$ (5)
Here $`a`$ annihilates the exchanged neutral scalar particle, $`b`$ annihilates the charged boson and $`d`$ annihilates the boson with opposite charge.

The difference in the free field expansion in both forms of dynamics lies in the integration element and in the interpretation of the operators $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`d`$. In LFD the integration element is

$`\{\mathrm{d}^3k\}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{[\mathrm{d}^3k]}{(2\pi )^{3/2}\sqrt{2k^+}}}.`$ (6)
In LFD we define the integration element in momentum space $`[\mathrm{d}^3k]`$ in a similar way as we did in coordinate space: $`[\mathrm{d}^3k]=\mathrm{d}k^+\mathrm{d}^2k^{}`$. In IFD the integration element is given by

$`\{\mathrm{d}^3k\}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}^3k}{(2\pi )^{3/2}\sqrt{2E(k,m)}}}.`$ (7)
Here $`\mathrm{d}^3k`$ is the usual integration element in IFD and the energy is given by $`E(k,m)=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}`$.

Substituting the free field expansions into Eqs. (2) or (3), we can find an expression for the Hamiltonian. Using normal ordering, we can write down the Hamiltonian, which can be split into two parts, a free part and a part containing the interaction. In Eqs. (8) and (9) the expressions are given in LFD:

$`P_{\mathrm{free}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle [\mathrm{d}^3k]\left(\frac{k_{}^2+\mu ^2}{2k^+}a^{}(k)a(k)+\frac{k_{}^2+m^2}{2k^+}\left[b^{}(k)b(k)+d^{}(k)d(k)\right]\right)},`$ (8)
$`P_{\mathrm{int}}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle [\mathrm{d}^3k][\mathrm{d}^3k^{}]\frac{\theta (k^+k^+)}{\sqrt{8k^+k^+(k^+k^+)}}}`$ (9)
$`\times `$ $`\left(a(kk^{})\left[b^{}(k)b(k^{})+d^{}(k)d(k^{})\right]+a^{}(kk^{})\left[b^{}(k^{})b(k)+d^{}(k^{})d(k)\right]\right).`$
The Hamiltonians in IFD are given in Eqs. (10) and (11):

$`H_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^3k\left[E(k,m)\left(b^{}(k)b(k)+d^{}(k)d(k)\right)+E(k,\mu )a^{}(k)a(k)\right]},`$ (10)
$`H_{\mathrm{int}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^3k\mathrm{d}^3k^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{8E(k,m)E(k^{},m)E(kk^{},\mu )}}}`$ (11)
$`\times `$ $`\left[a(kk^{})\left(b^{}(k)b(k^{})+d^{}(k)d(k^{})\right)+a^{}(kk^{})\left(b^{}(k^{})b(k)+d^{}(k^{})d(k)\right)\right].`$
In both forms of dynamics we can write down a Schrödinger like equation. In IFD we have the well-known equation $`H|\mathrm{\Psi }=|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ where $``$ is the total energy of the system and $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the total wave function. In LFD the Schrödinger equation is given by

$`\left(2P^+P^{}\stackrel{}{P}_{}^2\right)|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`M^2|\mathrm{\Psi }.`$ (12)
Here $`P^{}=P_{\mathrm{free}}^{}+P_{\mathrm{int}}^{}`$ is the total Hamiltonian, $`M`$ the total mass of the system and $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the total wave function.

Since it is not possible to solve a bound-state equation in full Fock space, we need to make a truncation. Here we follow the same procedure as Głazek et al. . Taking only the two and three particle sectors into account, we write the total wave function as

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`|\phi _2+|\phi _3.`$ (13)
Using this truncation we can write the Schrödinger equation as

$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}H_{22}& H_{23}\\ H_{32}& H_{33}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\phi _2\\ \phi _3\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`E\left(\begin{array}{c}\phi _2\\ \phi _3\end{array}\right).`$ (20)
Here $`H_{22}`$, $`H_{23}`$, $`H_{32}`$ and $`H_{33}`$ connect a two particle state to a two particle state, a three particle state to a two particle state, etc.

Using this Fock-space truncation and projecting out the states gives two equations, one for the two-particle sector and one for the three-particle sector

$`\phi _2|H_{22}|\phi _2+\phi _2|H_{23}|\phi _3`$ $`=`$ $`\phi _2|E|\phi _2,`$ (21)
$`\phi _3|H_{32}|\phi _2+\phi _3|H_{33}|\phi _3`$ $`=`$ $`\phi _3|E|\phi _3.`$ (22)
Eliminating either the two- or three-particle sector results in a bound-state equation. We have chosen to eliminate the three-particle sector and write everything in terms of the two-particle wave function, which results in

$`\left(EH_{22}\right)|\phi _2`$ $`=`$ $`H_{23}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{EH_{33}}}H_{32}|\phi _2.`$ (23)
The kets $`|\phi _2`$ and $`|\phi _3`$ in Eq. (13) can be written in terms of a wave function and creation operators acting on the vacuum. We have chosen to use two different bosons in the two- and three-particle states. Then we find richer spectra, as symmetrization would remove anti-symmetric states. In the light-front formalism the wave functions are given by

$`|\phi _2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle [\mathrm{d}^3p]\phi _2(p,Pp)b^{}(p)d^{}(Pp)|0},`$ (24)
$`|\phi _3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle [\mathrm{d}^3p][\mathrm{d}^3p^{}]\phi _3(p,Pp^{},p^{}p)b^{}(p)d^{}(Pp^{})a^{}(p^{}p)|0}.`$ (25)
Inserting these expressions into the bound-state equation and truncating after the second order in the coupling constant leads to an equation with four different contributions to the kernel. Two of these can be associated with the self energy and are ignored in this paper. Only the terms which can be associated with the exchange of a particle between different constituents are taken into account. This means that we are working in the ladder approximation and the bound-state equation in this case becomes

$`\left[M^2{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}{x(1x)}}\right]\phi _2(\stackrel{}{p}_{},x)={\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^2\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{}dx^{}K(\stackrel{}{p}_{},x;\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{},x^{})\phi _2(\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{},x^{})}.`$ (26)
Here $`K(\stackrel{}{p}_{},x;\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{},x^{})`$ is the kernel of the equation, $`g`$ the coupling constant and the relative variables $`x`$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}_{}`$ are defined as: $`x=p_1^+/(p_1^++p_2^+)`$, $`\stackrel{}{p}_{}=(1x)\stackrel{}{p}_{1,}x\stackrel{}{p}_{2,}`$. (Note that we used an imaginary coupling to obtain an attractive interaction.)

The two terms present in the kernel of the bound-state equation can be represented graphically by two time-ordered diagrams (Fig. 1).

The two time-ordered diagrams arise due to the condition that the plus-momentum of the exchanged particle should be larger than zero ($`p^+p^+>0`$ or $`p^+p^+>0`$). Each of these diagrams corresponds to an energy denominator which is present in the kernel of the bound-state equation. The full kernel is given by

$`K(\stackrel{}{p}_{},x;\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{},x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{x(1x)x^{}(1x^{})}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta (x^{}x)}{2(x^{}x)D_a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\theta (xx^{})}{2(xx^{})D_b}}\right).`$ (27)
Here the theta-function gives the time-ordering and $`D_a`$ and $`D_b`$ are the energy denominators corresponding to left hand side and right hand side graph in Fig. 1. The expressions for these energy denominators are:

$`D_a`$ $`=`$ $`M^2{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}{1x^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{}\stackrel{}{p}_{})^2+\mu ^2}{x^{}x}},`$ (28)
$`D_b`$ $`=`$ $`M^2{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}{x^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}{1x}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\stackrel{}{p}_{}\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{})^2+\mu ^2}{xx^{}}}.`$ (29)
In IFD the kets $`|\phi _2`$ and $`|\phi _3`$ in Eq. (13) can be written as

$`|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^3p\stackrel{~}{\phi }_2(p)b^{}(p)d^{}(p)|0},`$ (30)
$`|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^3p\mathrm{d}^3p^{}\stackrel{~}{\phi }_3(p,p^{})b^{}(p)d^{}(p^{})a^{}(p^{}p)|0}.`$ (31)
After doing calculations similar to those described above we get, when working in the centre of mass system, the bound-state equation in the IFD formalism

$`\left[2\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}\right]\stackrel{~}{\phi }_2(\stackrel{}{p})`$ $`=`$ (32)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{d}^3p^{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2}\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}\sqrt{(\stackrel{}{p}^{}\stackrel{}{p})^2+\mu ^2}}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\phi }_2(\stackrel{}{p}^{})}{4\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2}\sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}\sqrt{(\stackrel{}{p}^{}\stackrel{}{p})^2+\mu ^2}}}.`$
The bound states in the ladder approximation are found by solving Eq. (26) and (32) respectively.

## 3 Characterization of states

After having found the bound states, we must identify the states and assign quantum numbers to them. This can be done by using the squared orbital angular momentum operator $`\stackrel{}{L}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$. In the IFD approach there is no problem to identify the states. The orbital angular momentum operator $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ is kinematical and both the orbital angular momentum quantum number $`l`$ and the magnetic quantum number $`m`$ are good quantum numbers. This in contrast to the LFD approach, where $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ is dynamical. This leads to the fact that only the helicity $`h`$ is a good quantum number and that $`l`$ is not.

It is possible to approximate the $`\stackrel{}{L}`$-operator in LFD by first transforming the light-cone variables $`(x,\stackrel{}{p}_{})`$ into the variables $`(p_z,\stackrel{}{p}_{})`$. Note that this object is not a true three-dimensional vector, as its components do not transform properly under all 3D rotations. The transformation we use was first introduced by Terent’ev  and is given by

$$x=\frac{\sqrt{m_1^2+\stackrel{}{p}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}}+p_z}{\sqrt{m_1^2+\stackrel{}{p}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}}+\sqrt{m_2^2+\stackrel{}{p}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}}}.$$
(33)
Note that this transformation is exact for free particles. Its inverse is given by

$`p_z`$ $`=`$ $`\left(x{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m_1^2}{x}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m_2^2}{1x}}\right]^{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{m_1^2m_2^2}{2\left[\frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m_1^2}{x}+\frac{\stackrel{}{p}_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m_2^2}{1x}\right]^{1/2}}}.`$ (34)
After making this transformation, we can approximate the orbital angular momentum operator $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ by using

$`\stackrel{}{L}`$ $`=`$ $`i\stackrel{}{p}\times \stackrel{}{}_p.`$ (35)
To characterize a state we have found, we calculate the percentage of a specific angular momentum state (i.e. S, P, D, …) present in this state. This is done by taking the inner product with a spherical harmonic $`Y_{lm}`$, thus projecting the wave function on a radial function. In this way we can calculate for every angular momentum quantum number $`l`$ whether it is present in a calculated state and if so, how big its contribution to that state is. If the overlap is over 85% we characterize the calculated state with the quantum number $`l`$. We realize that this way of determining the angular momentum is only approximate.

## 4 Method of solution

We solved both bound-state equations (in LFD and IFD) numerically. This was done by integrating out the angular dependence and making an expansion into basis functions.

The LFD wave function $`\phi _2(\stackrel{}{p}_{},x)`$ in the bound-state equation, Eq. (26), depends on both the momentum and the orientation of $`\stackrel{}{p}_{}`$ in space. It is possible to expand this wave function in eigenfunctions of $`L_z`$,

$`\phi _2(\stackrel{}{p}_{},x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{h}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\frac{p_{}^2+m^2}{x(1x)}M^2}}}\psi _h(p_{},x)\chi _h(\varphi ).`$ (36)
where $`h`$ is the helicity and the factor $`1/\sqrt{\frac{p_{}^2+m^2}{x(1x)}M^2}`$ is introduced to symmetrize the integral equation. The angular part of a wave function with fixed helicity $`h`$ is

$`\chi _h(\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}\mathrm{exp}(ih\varphi ).`$ (37)
We use it to integrate out the angular dependence in the integral equation, Eq. (26).

As we can see from Eq. (36) the momentum dependent wave functions in LFD depend on both the perpendicular and plus component of the momenta. For the $`x`$-dependence of this wave function we have used cubic spline functions Ref.  and for the $`p_{}`$-dependence we have used a basis which contains Jacobi polynomials, viz

$`\psi _{kl}(p_{})`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{N}_{kl}p^l\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _{sc}}{p^2+\mu _{sc}^2}}\right)^{l+3/2}P_k^{(l+1,l)}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p^2\mu _{sc}^2}{p^2+\mu _{sc}^2}}\right).`$ (38)
Here $`\mu _{sc}`$ is a scaling parameter, $`l=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$, and $`\overline{N}_{kl}`$ is the normalization constant, which is given by

$`\overline{N}_{kl}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{\mu _{sc}k!(k+2l+1)!}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(k+l+1)}}.`$ (39)
These functions are similar to functions which were first introduced by Olsson and Weniger (see below). We have chosen them because they have the right behaviour at the origin and for $`p\mathrm{}`$.

For technical reasons we symmetrized the integral equation using the transformation given in Eq. (36). The kernel of the symmetrized bound-state equation for fixed helicity $`h`$ is given by:

$`K(p_{},x;p_{}^{},x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p_{}^{3/2}p_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}/2}}{\sqrt{M^2x(1x)(p_{}+m^2)}\sqrt{M^2x^{}(1x^{})(p_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2)}}}`$ (40)
$`\times [{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \theta (x^{}x)}{2(x^{}x)D_a^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1\left(\frac{2p_{}p_{}^{}}{(x^{}x)D_a^{}}\right)^2}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{1\left(\frac{2p_{}p_{}^{}}{(x^{}x)D_a^{}}\right)^2}1}{\frac{2p_{}p_{}^{}}{(x^{}x)D_a^{}}}}\right)^{|h|}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \theta (xx^{})}{2(xx^{})D_b^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1\left(\frac{2p_{}p_{}^{}}{(xx^{})D_b^{}}\right)^2}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{1\left(\frac{2p_{}p_{}^{}}{(xx^{})D_b^{}}\right)^2}1}{\frac{2p_{}p_{}^{}}{(xx^{})D_b^{}}}}\right)^{|h|}],`$
where $`D_a^{}`$ and $`D_b^{}`$ are given by

$`D_a^{}`$ $`=`$ $`M^2{\displaystyle \frac{p_{}^2+m^2}{x}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}{1x^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+p_{}^2+\mu ^2}{x^{}x}},`$ (41)
$`D_b^{}`$ $`=`$ $`M^2{\displaystyle \frac{p_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}{x^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_{}^2+m^2}{1x}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_{}^2+p_{}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+\mu ^2}{xx^{}}}.`$ (42)
Since we have integrated out the angular dependence the vector character of the momenta in these equations has disappeared. Note that in the kernel the absolute value of the helicity is present, which implies that states with opposite helicities are degenerate.

The wave functions in IFD depend on the three-momentum (see e.g. Eq. (32)). In this case we can expand the wave functions into spherical harmonics

$`\stackrel{~}{\phi }_2(\stackrel{}{p})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{lm}{}}Y_{lm}(\widehat{p})\varphi _l(p).`$ (43)
Note that we can integrate out both angles $`\theta `$ and $`\varphi `$, whereas in LFD we could only integrate out one angle, $`\varphi `$. For the momentum dependent part of the wave function we can make an expansion into basis functions as well. Here we use a basis which was first introduced by Olsson and Weniger

$`\psi ^{OW}(p)`$ $`=`$ $`N_{kl}p^l\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _{sc}}{p^2+\mu _{sc}^2}}\right)^{l+2}P_k^{(l+3/2,l+1/2)}\left({\displaystyle \frac{p^2\mu _{sc}^2}{p^2+\mu _{sc}^2}}\right).`$ (44)
Here $`\mu _{sc}`$ is a scaling parameter, $`l=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$, and the normalization constant $`N_{kl}`$ is given by

$`N_{kl}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{\mu _{sc}k!(k+2l+2)!}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(k+l+3/2)}}.`$ (45)
We symmetrize the integral equation by using the transformation

$`\varphi _l(p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\varphi }_l(p)}{\sqrt{2\sqrt{p^2+m^2}}}}.`$ (46)
After symmetrizing the equation and integrating out the angular dependence the kernel of the bound-state equation in IFD becomes

$`\stackrel{~}{K}(p,p^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\sqrt{2\sqrt{p^2+m^2}}\sqrt{2\sqrt{p^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{V_l(p,p^{})}{4\sqrt{p^2+m^2}\sqrt{p^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}}}.`$ (47)
Here $`l`$ is the angular momentum quantum number and $`V_l(p,p^{})`$ is obtained by integrating over the angle between $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}^{}`$ and is given by

$`V_l(p,p^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}(\widehat{p}\widehat{p^{}})P_l(\widehat{p}\widehat{p^{}})}{\sqrt{p^2+m^2}\sqrt{p^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}\sqrt{p^2+p^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+\mu ^22pp^{}(\widehat{p}\widehat{p^{}})}}}`$ (48)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{p^2+p^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+\mu ^22pp^{}(\widehat{p}\widehat{p^{}})}}},`$
where $`P_l(\widehat{p}\widehat{p^{}})`$ is a Legendre polynomial.

## 5 Numerical results

First we studied the accuracy of the matrix elements. Using enough integration points allows us to calculate the matrix elements with an accuracy of at least six decimal places. We studied the convergence of the spectra with respect to the number of basis functions, i.e., spline functions and Olsson Weniger like functions in LFD and the functions introduced by Olsson and Weniger in the case of IFD. In LFD we found that 14 spline functions or more and eight Olsson Weniger like functions or more give an accuracy of at least three decimal places for the lowest state for any $`l`$. The states with principal quantum number $`n=3`$ have an estimated absolute error of 0.004. In IFD taking 20 basis functions or more gives an accuracy of four decimal places in all cases considered.

Taking more basis functions into account gives some variation in the absolute values of the masses. The relative position of the bound states does not change, which means that the spectra are not changed qualitatively.

We have also compared our calculations in LFD with those of Mangin-Brinet et al. . They have calculated the ground-state masses only and we have compared our calculated ground-state masses with those given in Ref. . We have to remark that in that paper a coupling constant $`\alpha `$ is used, where $`\alpha =g^2/(16\pi m^2)`$. In Table 1 our calculated ground-state masses are compared with the values from Ref.  for different values of the coupling constant.

For smaller values of $`g`$ we find the same bound-state masses, while for larger values we find somewhat smaller masses. As in Ref.  the masses are given in three decimal places only, we conclude that our calculations are essentially in agreement with those of Mangin-Brinet et al.

### 5.1 Spectra

For different values of the coupling constant we have calculated the spectra in the case of massless exchange. In the LFD formalism we have calculated the bound states for different helicities and afterwards determined the corresponding orbital angular momentum quantum number. Here we have used eight basis functions for the $`p_{}`$-dependence and 14 spline functions for the plus-momentum dependence of the wave function. In the IFD formalism the bound states are calculated with $`l`$ as a good quantum number and by using 25 Olsson Weniger functions.

In Fig. 2 the spectra are plotted for coupling constant $`g=17.36`$, 14.18, and 10.03, which correspond to $`\alpha =6`$, $`4`$, and $`2`$. We have only plotted the cases $`l=0,1,2`$. We should remark that in Fig. 2 the spectrum for $`\alpha =6`$ is not completely shown. (We have left out the ground state to get a better view of the rest of the spectrum.)

Due to the breaking of manifest rotational invariance in LFD the P-states and D-states are split. The center of gravity of these split levels is plotted in Fig. 2 as a dashed line and the values corresponding to this center of gravity are given in Table 2. Looking at the S-states and the dashed lines in Fig. 2 we observe a more or less similar pattern as found in IFD (Fig. 3).

Looking at the spectra for different coupling constants we see that the binding becomes less when the coupling constant becomes smaller. This is the same in both IFD and LFD. Comparing between the different formalisms we see that the states in the LFD formalism have more binding.

If instead of massless exchange $`\mu 0`$ is considered, one may expect the masses to increase. This is borne out by comparing $`\mu =0`$ and $`\mu =0.15`$. The comparison is done for all three values of the coupling constant used above, i.e., $`\alpha =6`$, 4 and 2. In Table 3 the LFD calculated masses with orbital angular momentum quantum number $`l=0,1,2`$ ($`\mu =0`$ and $`\mu =0.15`$) are compared to those calculated in IFD for a coupling constant $`g=17.36`$ ($`\alpha =6`$). The calculated masses for a coupling constant $`g=14.18`$ ($`\alpha =4`$) and $`g=10.03`$ ($`\alpha =2`$) are given in Table 4 and 5. In all these tables the quantum numbers of the states are given as well as the masses.

As we already saw in Fig. 2, the states have less binding for decreasing coupling constant and we find only a few bound states in the case of $`g=10.03`$. Tables 3, 4, and 5 show the same effect. From these results it also becomes clear that the states in the case of massless exchange have more binding than those for $`\mu =0.15`$. Especially in the case of $`l=1`$ or 2 the binding is sometimes so small that we did not succeed in calculating the bound-state mass with the number of basis functions we have used.

### 5.2 Wave functions

Besides the spectra we calculated the wave functions corresponding to the bound states. In Fig. 4 the 2-D LFD wave functions of the 1S, 2S and 2P states for $`g=17.36`$ and $`\mu =0`$ are given.

These figures show the variation of the wave function with $`x`$ (or $`p^+`$) and $`|\stackrel{}{p}_{}|`$. We see that the wave function goes asymptotically to zero when $`|\stackrel{}{p}_{}|`$ becomes large.

In Fig. 5 the wave functions corresponding to the 1S, 2S, and 3S states are plotted for all three values of the coupling constant in the case of massless exchange.

This figure shows that the wave function becomes flatter and broader when the coupling constant increases. All functions go asymptotically to zero and show the correct number of nodes; i.e. zero nodes for the 1S state, one node for the 2S-state etc.

In the case of the S-states, the helicity can only be equal to zero. This in contrast to the P- and D-states where we have helicity $`1`$, 0 and 1 (P-states) and $`2`$, $`1`$, 0, 1 and 2 (D-states). In our calculations we have worked with positive helicities only. We can do this because of the fact that only the absolute value of the helicity is present in the kernel, Eq. (40). In Fig. 6 the 2P, 3P, and 3D states for all (positive) helicities are plotted in the case of $`\mu =0`$ for coupling constant $`\alpha =6,4,2`$. As could be expected, the radial wave functions depend on the helicity, which is again due to the breaking of rotational invariance.

The comparison between the radial wave functions calculated in LFD and IFD is made in Fig. 7. In this figure the wave functions are plotted for a coupling constant $`g=17.36`$ only.

Comparing the plots in Fig. 7 we see that the wave function calculated in the LFD formalism is flatter and broader than the wave function calculated in IFD.

## 6 Discussion and conclusions

We calculated the bound-state spectrum of the Wick-Cutkosky model in the ladder approximation both in light-front dynamics and in instant-form dynamics. We used as a variational method an expansion of the wave function in spline functions for the $`x`$ dependence and an orthonormal set for the $`p_{}`$ coordinate in LFD. Likewise, we used a similar set for the radial wave functions in IFD. We checked the absolute convergence of the spectra and also convinced ourselves that the relative positions of the mass eigenvalues will very probably not change at all when the number of basis functions would be increased above what we have used.

As rotational invariance is broken in LFD by cutting off the Fock-space expansion, we cannot expect the correct multiplet structure to appear in the ladder approximation. Moreover, because the angular-momentum operator is dynamical, we cannot immediately determine the angular momentum quantum number $`l`$ of the states found in LFD. Using Terent’ev’s transformation, which is approximate in the bound-state (off-energy-shell) case, we were able to characterize the bound states by calculating their overlaps with the spherical harmonics $`Y_{lm}(\widehat{p})`$. Following this procedure, we could estimate the degree of breaking of rotational invariance in LFD. Not surprisingly, rotational symmetry is less violated for small values of the coupling constant than for strong coupling.

The well-known $`O(4)`$ symmetry of the WC-model is violated in the ladder approximation in both LFD and IFD. If one computes the centers of gravity of the states with the same $`l`$ and helicities $`h=l,\mathrm{},l`$, one finds that the breaking of $`O(4)`$ symmetry in LFD and IFD are quite similar.

In all cases we considered, the masses calculated in LFD are smaller than in IFD. One might try to explain this fact by pointing out that the Fock-space expansion converges more rapidly in LFD than in IFD, as shown in Ref. , but one must keep in mind that in the latter paper the Yukawa model was investigated, so one cannot be absolutely certain of the validity of this argument for the WC-model. Calculations done by Cooke and Miller  and Schoonderwoerd et al.  show that the breaking of rotational invariance in the Yukawa model is partially restored by including the box diagram.

Although in the cases where the coupling constant is large, the bound systems are certainly relativistic with binding energies of the same order as the masses of the constituents, we find even then that the binding energies follow the nonrelativistic rule $`E_n=E_1/n^2`$ remarkably well. This feature is illustrated in Table 6. For very weak coupling, $`\alpha =0.5`$ and 1.0, we see a similar pattern for the Salpeter equation, see Table 7, although in this case the binding is much larger than in the LFD case.

The potential used is not bounded from below and shows a collapse of the wave function above a critical value of the coupling constant, see Ref. . In the literature a critical value of $`\alpha 1.27`$ can be found . Looking at Table 7 we see that the ground-state mass for $`\alpha =2`$ has dropped enormously, illustrating the collapse.

An analytical solution of the Wick equation in the weak-binding limit is given by Feldman et al. . In Table 8 the bound-state masses are given for two values of the coupling constant, $`\alpha =0.5`$ and $`\alpha =1`$, calculated with the expression for the binding energy given in Ref. . For these two values of the coupling constant we also calculated the bound-state masses in LFD and IFD (see Table 8) for $`l=0`$ only.

In his paper Cutkosky  gives a plot of his numerical results obtained in the WC-model. From his figure we read off masses for different values of the coupling constant (row ‘WC’ in Table 9). In a similar way we read off the masses from Fig. 2 in Ref. . Looking at this figure we see that only the results by Ji are not underestimating the WC-model masses. In Table 9 we give the masses which we read off from the curve labelled ‘Ji’. For comparison we also give the masses of the 1S state calculated in the LFD approach and those calculated with the analytical expression given by Ref.  (row ‘FFT’ in Table 9). Here we should remark that the analytical expression is only valid for small values of the coupling constant.

From Table 9 we see that the masses calculated by Ji overestimate the bound-state masses for the WC-model. We also see that the analytical expression of  is only valid for small values of the coupling constant $`\alpha `$.

Besides the mass spectrum we have also calculated both the two-dimensional and radial wavefunctions. Breaking of rotational invariance is clearly seen in the LFD case.