Decompositions of Binomial Ideals in Macaulay 2

Abstract

The package Binomials contains implementations of specialized algorithms for binomial ideals, including primary decomposition into binomial ideals. The current implementation works in characteristic zero. Primary decomposition is restricted to binomial ideals with trivial coefficients to avoid computations over the algebraic numbers. The basic ideas of the algorithms go back to Eisenbud and Sturmfels' seminal paper on the subject. Two recent improvements of the algorithms are discussed and examples are presented.