Georgia Institute of Technology School of Mathematics | Georgia Institute of Technology | Atlanta, GA

The main work of this thesis is to numerically estimate some conjectured arm exponents when there exist certain number of open paths and closed dual paths that extend to the boundary of a box of sidelength N centering at the origin in bond invasion percolation on a plane square lattice by Monte-Carlo simulations. The result turns out to be supportive for the conjectured value. The numerical estimate for the acceptance profile of invasion percolation at the critical point is also obtained. An efficient algorithm to simulate invasion percolation and to find disjoint paths on most regular 2-dimensional lattices are also discussed. 

Numerical algebraic geometry studies methods to approach problems in algebraic geometry numerically. Especially, finding roots of systems of equations using theory in algebraic geometry involves symbolic algorithm which requires expensive computations, numerical techniques often provides faster methods to tackle these problems. We establish numerical techniques to approximate roots of systems of equations and ways to certify its correctness.

As techniques for approximating roots of systems of equations, homotopy continuation method will be introduced. Combining homotopy method with monodromy group action, we introduce techniques for solving parametrized polynomial systems. Since numerical approaches rely on heuristic method, we study how to certify numerical roots of systems of equations. Based on Newton’s method, we study Krawczyk method and Smale’s alpha theory. These two method will be mainly used for certifying regular roots of systems. Furthermore, as an approach for multiple roots, we establish the local separation bound of a multiple root. For multiple roots whose deflation process terminates by only one iteration, we give their local separation bound and study how to certify an approximation of such multiple roots.