Ronkin/Zeta Correspondence
Abstract
The Ronkin function was defined by Ronkin [26] in the consideration of the zeros of almost periodic function. Recently, this function has been used in various research fields in mathematics, physics and so on. Especially in mathematics, it has a closed connections with tropical geometry, amoebas, Newton polytopes and dimer models (see [4], for example).
On the other hand, we have been investigated a new class of zeta functions for various kinds of walks including quantum walks by a series of our previous work on “Zeta Correspondence”. The quantum walk is a quantum counterpart of the random walk. In this paper, we present a new relation between the Ronkin function and our zeta function for random walks and quantum walks. Firstly we consider this relation in the case of one-dimensional random walks. Afterwards we deal with higher-dimensional random walks. For comparison with the case of the quantum walk, we also treat the case of one-dimensional quantum walks. Fortunately, the Laurent polynomials were obtained through those Ronkin functions. Finally, we describe some properties about them by using the terminology of tropical geometry. Our results bridge between the Ronkin function and the zeta function via quantum walks for the first time.
Corresponding author∗: Kohei Sato, Oyama National College of Technology, Oyama, Tochigi, 323-0806, Japan,
e-mail: [email protected]
2020 Mathematics Subject Classification: 60F05, 05C50, 15A15, 05C25, 14T05
Keywords: Zeta function, Quantum walk, Random walk, Ronkin function, Amoeba, Newton polytope
Abbr. title: Ronkin/Zeta Correspondence
1 Introduction
We have been investigated a new class of zeta functions for many kinds of walks including the quantum walk (QW) and the random walk (RW) by a series of our previous work on “Zeta Correspondence” in [7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17]. The QW can be interpreted as a quantum counterpart of RW. As for QW, see [14, 20, 25, 29] and as for RW, see [15, 23, 27], for examples.
In Walk/Zeta Correspondence [8], a walk-type zeta function was defined without use of the determinant expressions of zeta function of a graph , and various properties of walk-type zeta functions of RW, correlated random walk (CRW) and QW on were studied. Also, their limit formulas by using integral expressions were presented.
In [13], Komatsu et al. introduced the logarithmic zeta function by using the above walk-type zeta function, and presented a relation between the Mahler measure and the logarithmic zeta function for QWs and RWs on on a finite torus. So we call this relationship “Mahler/Zeta Correspondence” for short.
The Mahler measure is closely related to the Ronkin function (see [26]). Specially, in the dimer model, the the free energy with respect to its partition function is presented as the special value of the Ronkin function (see [18, 6, 28]). The Ronkin function was defined by Ronkin [26] in the consideration of the zeros of almost periodic function. It is known that the Ronkin function appears in areas of the ameba and the Newton convex hull (see [4], for example).
Our results bridge between the Ronkin function and the zeta function research fields via RWs and QWs for the first time.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we briefly review “Walk/Zeta Correspondence” investigated in [8]. Furthermore, we deal with the logarithmic zeta function for QWs and RWs on a finite torus, and state explicit formulas for the logarithmic zeta functions of one-dimensional QWs and higher-dimensional RWs on a finite torus. In Section 3, we present the relation between the Ronkin function and RW on the finite torus and the relation between the Ronkin function and QW on the one-dimensional torus . Moreover, we discuss some properties of the Laurent polynomials obtained from these Ronkin functions corresponding to RWs and QWs.
2 Zeta functions due to RWs and QWs
For the convenience of readers, we give a brief overview of “Walk/Zeta Correspondence” and the logarithmic zeta function in our previous work [8, 13]. These are the fundamental tools in this paper.
2.1 The walk-type zeta function
First we introduce the following notation: is the set of integers, is the set of non-negative integers, is the set of positive integers, is the set of real numbers, and is the set of complex numbers. Moreover, denotes the -dimensional torus with vertices, where . Remark that .
Following [8] in which Walk/Zeta Correspondence on was investigated, we treat our setting for -state discrete time walk with a nearest-neighbor jump on .
The discrete time walk is defined by using a shift operator and a coin matrix which will be mentioned below. Let . For and , the shift operator is defined by , where denotes the standard basis of . This means that the walks are taken along the direction . Therefore, the direction polytope of degree can be defined as follows:
where the symbol means the convex hull spanned by a subset . Moreover, we define the direction graph of degree as the dual graph of .
The coin matrix is a matrix with for . If and for any , then the walk is a CRW. We should remark that, in particular, when for any , this CRW becomes a RW. If is unitary, then the walk is a QW. So our class of walks contains RW, CRW, and QW as special models.
To describe the evolution of the walk, we decompose the coin matrix as
where denotes the orthogonal projection onto the one-dimensional subspace in . Here denotes a standard basis on .
The discrete time walk associated with the coin matrix on is determined by the matrix
(1) |
The state at time and location can be expressed by a -dimensional vector:
where is the transposed operator. For , Eq. (1) gives the evolution of the walk as follows.
(2) |
This equation means that the walker moves at each step one unit to the -axis direction with matrix or one unit to the -axis direction with matrix for .
Moreover, for and , the matrix is given by
where the matrix is the sum of all possible paths in the trajectory of steps -axis direction and steps -axis direction and is the summation over satisfying
Here we put
where is the identity matrix and is the zero matrix. Then, for the walk starting from , we obtain
We call matrix weight at time and location starting from . When we consider the walk on not but , we add the superscript “” to the notation like and .
This type is moving shift model called M-type here. Another type is flip-flop shift model called F-type whose coin matrix is given by
where is the tensor product and
The F-type model is also important, since it has a central role in the Konno-Sato theorem [16], for example. When we distinguish (M-type) from (F-type), we write by .
The measure at time and location is defined by
where denotes the standard -norm on . As for RW and QW, we take and , respectively. Then RW and QW satisfy
for any time .
To consider the zeta function, we use the Fourier analysis. To do so, we introduce the following notation: and .
For , the Fourier transform of the function , denoted by , is defined by the sum
(3) |
where . Here is the canonical inner product of , i.e., . Then we see that . Moreover, we should remark that
(4) |
where . By using
(5) |
we can rewrite Eqs. (3) and (4) in the following way:
for and . In order to take a limit , we introduced the notation given in Eq. (5). We should note that as for the summation, we sometimes write “” instead of “”. From the Fourier transform and Eq. (5), we have
where and matrix is determined by
By using notations in Eq. (5), we get
(6) |
Next we will consider the following eigenvalue problem for matrix :
(7) |
where is an eigenvalue and is the corresponding eigenvector. Noting that Eq. (7) is closely related to Eq. (2), we see that Eq. (7) is rewritten as
(8) |
for any . From the Fourier transform and Eq. (7), we obtain
for any . Then the characteristic polynomials of matrix for fixed is
(9) |
where are eigenvalues of . Similarly, the characteristic polynomials of matrix is
Therefore, by taking , we get the following key result.
(10) |
We should note that for fixed , eigenvalues of matrix are expressed as
Moreover, eigenvalues of matrix not only but also are expressed as
By using notations in Eq. (5) and Eq. (9), we see that for fixed ,
(11) |
Furthermore, Eq. (6) gives the following important formula.
In this setting, we define the walk-type zeta function by
(12) |
We should remark that our walk is defined on the “site” . On the other hand, the walk in [7] is defined on the “arc” (i.e., oriented edge). However, both of the walks are the same for the torus case. As for a more detailed information, see Remark 1 in [5], for instance.
By Eqs. (10), (11) and (12), we get
Sometimes we write instead of . Noting and taking a limit as , we show
if the limit exists for a suitable range of . We should note that when we take a limit as , we assume that the limit exists throughout this paper. Here and denotes the uniform measure on , that is,
Then the following result was obtained.
Theorem 1 (Komatsu, Konno and Sato [8]).
where
with .
2.2 The logarithmic zeta function
We define the logarithmic zeta function on a finite torus, and state its properties. Let denotes the -dimensional torus with vertices, and a matrix the coin matrix of a dicrete time walk on , where for .
Now, we introduce the logarithmic zeta function as follows(see [13]).
(13) |
Then, the second equation in Theorem 1 immediately gives
Theorem 2.
Note that throughout this paper, we assume “” for our logarithmic zeta function . The range of depends on the model determined by a coin matrix .
Moreover, we define by
(14) |
Let denote the trace of a square matrix . Then by definition of , the following result was shown in [8].
Theorem 3 (Komatsu, Konno and Sato [8]).
An interesting point is that is the return “matrix weight” at time for the walk on not but . We should remark that in general is not the same as the return probability at time for QW and CRW, but for RW.
Furthermore, we introduce
Therefore, by using the above equation, Theorem 2, and Eq. (14), we have
Theorem 4.
From now on, we will present the result on only and , since the corresponding expression for “without ” is the essentially same (see Theorems 1 and 3, for example).
Next, we consider a relation between the logarithmic zeta function for two-state QWs on the one-dimensional torus .
First we deal with general walks including QWs on the one-dimensional torus whose coin matrix (M-type) or (F-type) as follows:
since
Set and . In this case, we take
Thus we immediately get
(15) | ||||
(16) |
By these equations, we have
Then the result given in [8] can be rewritten in terms of the logarithmic zeta function as follows:
Proposition 1.
for .
Remark that Proposition 1 is also obtained by Theorem 1.
From now on, we focus on QWs in one dimension. One of the typical classes of QWs for coin matrix (M-type) or (F-type) is as follows:
When , the QW becomes the so-called Hadamard walk which is one of the most well-investigated model in the study of QWs. Then the result given in [8] can also be rewritten in terms of the logarithmic zeta function like Proposition as follows:
Proposition 2.
for , where
Moreover,
for and
Note that the result on in Proposition 2 is also derived from Proposition 1. Here the following result holds.
Theorem 5 (Komatsu, Konno, Sato and Tamura [13]).
Let and . Then we have
for and .
for and .
Now, we consider a relation between the logarithmic zeta function for RWs on the higher-dimensional torus , see [13].
From definition of the (simple symmetric) RW on (see [23, 27]), we easily see that
(17) |
where is the transition probability matrix of the (simple symmetric) RW on . Here the RW on jumps to each of its nearest neighbors with equal probability . Noting Eq. (17), the result given in [13] can be rewritten in terms of the logarithmic zeta function as follows:
Proposition 3.
where
Moreover, we have
where
In particular, when and , we have
Proposition 4.
for , where
3 Ronkin/Zeta Correspondence
The Ronkin function was defined by Ronkin in [26], and is defined for a Laurent polynomial. Let
be a Laurent polynomial with only a finite number of the ’s being non-zero. Then the Ronkin function of is defined as follows:
In this section, we discuss a correspondence between the logarithmic zeta function introduced in the previous section and the Ronkin function.
3.1 Correspondence for RW
For the logarithmic zeta function of the one-dimensional RW, the following result follows.
Proposition 5.
Let
and
Then
Proof. Substituting in Proposition 3, we obtain
Now, let
If we set , then we have
Thus, we obtain
If , then , and so
Thus, we have
Therefore, it follows that
Next, the relation between the Ronkin function and the 2-dimensional RW is given as follows.
Proposition 6.
Let
and
Then
Proof. Substituting in Proposition 3, we obtain
If , then we have
Now, let
If we set and , then we have
Thus, we obtain
Therefore, it follows that
Hence,
Similarly to the proofs of Propositions 5 and 6, we obtain the following result.
Theorem 6.
Let . Furthermore, let
and
Then
3.2 Correspondence for QW
We consider a relation betweeen the logarithmic zeta function and the Ronkin function for two-state QWs on the one-dimensional torus . We deal with general walks including QWs on the one-dimensional torus whose coin matrix (M-type) or (F-type) as follows:
We only state the case of the M-type . For the case of the F-type, the result follows similarly.
Theorem 7.
Let
and
Furthermore, let
Then
Proof. At first, let . By Proposition 2, we have
By Theorem 5, we get
Here, we use in the the second equality.
Since
we obtain the following result:
3.3 Properties of the Laurent polynomials due to RWs and QWs
In the previous sections, we introduced the Laurent polynomials:
From now on, we treat these functions as just Laurent polynomials, and discuss “What these Laurent polynomials are?” by using the terminologies of tropical geometry.
Since we do not need to consider restrictions on integral domains and so on, we assume . Furthermore, since we are only concerned with the zero set of these Laurent polynomials, we can replace and with the following:
where
The Newton polytope for the Laurent polynomial is the closed convex hull spanned by , where is the standard basis of . Especially, are the closed section . Fortunately, the Newton polytope coincides with the direction polytope which is defined in the first part of subsection 2.1 as the following.
Theorem 8.
Let be one of the Laurent polynomials or . Then, the Newton polytope coincides with the direction polytope of its walk.
Proof. If is or , then the degree of the direction graph is one, and the following equation holds:
In the case that is , the Newton polytope is . Therefore,
Therefore, the Laurent polynomial contains the information concerning the direction of the walk. However, we conjecture that doesn’t have any other infomation. In the following, we discuss the amoebas and tropical hypersurfaces of which contain more topological information compared with the Newton polytopes.
For the Laurent polynomials and , the discussion is omitted in the following because it is just a one-dimensional case and same with the case of for .
The amoeba was first defined by Gelfand, Kapranov and Zelevinsky [4] as the image of the logarithmic map from the zero set of a Laurent polynomial to ,
By Passare and Rullgård [24], the following assertions were shown.
Proposition 7 (Passare and Rullgård, [24]).
The Ronkin function is convex. Especially, it is strongly convex on the amoeba , and it is linear on each complement set .
Forsberg, Passare and Tsikh [3] have shown some relations between the structure of the amoeba of and the Newton polytope by using the Ronkin function.
Theorem 9 (Forsberg, Passare and Tsikh, [3]).
The number of connected components of the amoeba complement is at least equal to the number of vertices of the Newton polytope and at most equal to the total number of integer points in .

By Proposition 7 and Theorem 9, it is shown that the number of the complement components in the amoeba is equal to or less than the number of the lattice points in , the amoeba can be seen to be one of the figures in Fig. 2. In fact, the right figure is the amoeba of because the origin is a pole of . This area is sometimes called the “bubble”.


By the results of Mikhalkin [22] and Rullgård, it is known that the ultra-discrete limit of an amoeba converges in the Hausdorff metric to the non-archimedean amoeba. Moreover, it is proved that the non-archimedean amoeba coincides with the tropical hypersurface by Einsiedler, Kapranov and Lind [2, Theorem 2.1.1]. For a Laurent polynomial , the tropical polynomial is given (see (19)), and the tropical hypersurface of is defined as the set
Theorem 10 (Einsiedler, Kapranov and Lind, [2]).
Let be a Laurent polynomial. The non-archimedean amoeba coincides with the tropical hypersurface for .
In the following, we introduce non-archimedean amoeba, and give the tropical hypersurface for the Laurent polynomials .
Let be the field of Puiseux series over , where is the field of Laurent polynomials in the formal variable . For a Puiseux series:
where and , the index set of is called the support of , and denoted by . This is a well-orderd set. A valuation on , can be defined as follows:
For instance, if , then can be represent as , and . Therefore, we have .
Definition 1.
A map which satisfies the conditions
-
•
,
-
•
,
-
•
for any is called a non-archimedean norm on .
The map given as following is a non-archimedean norm:
The image of the zero set of by the map using this norm is called the non-archimedean amoeba of .
(18) |
We note that for .
By the logarithmic map in (18), a Laurent polynomial corresponds to the tropical polynomial of which is given as
(19) |
where for is a variable over , and means the max-plus (i.e., the additional operator ). This tropical polynomial is also called “the tropicalization of ” or “the ultra-discretization of ”.
As an example, the tropical curve given by is coincides with the non-archimedean amoeba of by Theorem 10. The tropical polynomial corresponding to is as follows:
where the symbol means equality as functions. Then, the tropical curve given by is as in Fig. 3.

This tropical curve is the ultra-discrete limit of . The bubble at the origin in the amoeba is deleted. This means that the topological information is lost by the ultra-discretization.
In the general case, for the Laurent polynomial
and the Newton polytope is
Furthermore, the tropical polynomial is
Let be a set of the coordinates and them multiplied by , where does not contain and simultaneously. We set and
The tropical hypersuface consists of the -dimensional strongly convex polyhedral cones:
This closed cone is the area such that the elements in are maximal in , and corresponds to the -dimansional face in :
Moreover, the defining equation of the -dimensional hyperplane which contain the cone is given as
where the operator in this equation is the ordinary one (i.e., not tropical).
Lemma 1.
is perpendicular to .
Proof. In this proof, we identifies the coordinates with the standard basis for . The barycenter of the face is . Therefore, a point in can be represent as
for integers . The direction vectors of are
On the other hand, the vector in can be written as
for non-negative integers . We note that the inner product and satisfy that
Therefore, we have
By the definition of the cone and Lemma 1, the relation between and can be described as follows.
Theorem 11.
For the Laurent polynomial , the tropical hypersurface is given as the dual graph of the Newton polytope .
By Theorem 11 and the definition of the “direction graph” in the first part of subsection 2.1, we have the following conclusion.
Corollary 1.
Let be one of the laurent polynomials or . Then, the tropical hypersurface coincides with the direction graph of its walk.
In this case, the the tropical hypersurface is determined by the Newton polytope completely, and it is clear that both of them have the same information of the walk. However, the amoeba is a little different from them because the amoeba contains a bubble at the origin. The Laurent polynomial has a pole at the origin. This bubble does not seem to make much sense for the walk, the characterization of this bubble by the language of RW or QW is a topic for future work. In summary, it turns out that the Laurent polynomial has almost only directional information of RW or QW.
Acknowledgments
The first author is supported by the JSPS Grant-in-aid for young scientisits No. 22K13959.
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