On the structure and generic non-Cartesianity of polynomials in product spaces

Abstract

We develop a general theory of Cartesian and non-Cartesian polynomials on products of complex spaces $\mathbb{C}^{n_1} \times \cdots \times \mathbb{C}^{n_k}$. We prove that, for any fixed degree $d \ge 2$, a (Zariski) generic polynomial is non-Cartesian in a broad range of dimensions, establishing that Cartesian structure is highly exceptional. We further introduce effective sufficient criteria for a polynomial to be non-Cartesian. Moreover, we show that being (non)-Catersian can be decided algorithmically via Gröbner basis methods and quantitative forms of Hilbert's Nullstellensatz. As an application, we connect the non-Cartesian condition to incidence geometry, obtaining sharp intersection bounds and constructing extremal configurations that demonstrate the optimality of these estimates.