Complexity of deciding whether a tropical linear prevariety is a tropical variety

Abstract

We give an algorithm, with a singly exponential complexity, deciding whether a tropical linear prevariety is a tropical linear variety. The algorithm relies on a criterion to be a tropical linear variety in terms of a duality between the tropical orthogonalization $A^\perp$ and the double tropical orthogonalization $A^{\perp \perp}$ of a subset $A$ of the vector space $({\mathbb R} \cup \{ \infty \})^n$. We also give an example of a countable family of tropical hyperplanes such that their intersection is not a tropical prevariety.