Adaptative Step Size Selection for Homotopy Methods to Solve Polynomial Equations

Abstract: Given a C^1 path of systems of homogeneous polynomial equations f_t, t in [a,b] and an approximation x_a to a zero zeta_a of the initial system f_a, we show how to adaptively choose the step size for a Newton based homotopy method so that we approximate the lifted path (f_t,zeta_t) in the space of (problems, solutions) pairs. The total number of Newton iterations is bounded in terms of the length of the lifted path in the condition metric.