Fast real and complex root-finding methods for well-conditioned polynomials

Overview & Synopsis

Given a polynomial $p$ of degree $d$ and a bound $\kappa$ on a condition number of $p$, we present the first root-finding algorithms that return all its real and complex roots with a number of bit operations quasi-linear in $d \log^2(\kappa)$. More precisely, several condition numbers can be defined depending on the norm chosen on the coefficients of the polynomial. Let $p(x) = \sum_{k=0}^d a_k x^k = \sum_{k=0}^d \sqrt{\binom d k} b_k x^k$. We call the condition number associated with a perturbation of the $a_k$ the hyperbolic condition number $\kappa_h$, and the one associated with a perturbation of the $b_k$ the elliptic condition number $\kappa_e$. For each of these condition numbers, we present algorithms that find the real and the complex roots of $p$ in $O\left(d\log^2(d\kappa)\ \text{polylog}(\log(d\kappa))\right)$ bit operations. Our algorithms are well suited for random polynomials since $\kappa_h$ (resp. $\kappa_e$) is bounded by a polynomial in $d$ with high probability if the $a_k$ (resp. the $b_k$) are independent, centered Gaussian variables of variance $1$.