Bezout-type theorems for differential fields

Abstract

We prove analogs of the Bezout and the Bernstein–Kushnirenko–Khovanskii theorems for systems of algebraic differential conditions over differentially closed fields. Namely, given a system of algebraic conditions on the first $l$ derivatives of an $n$-tuple of functions, which admits finitely many solutions, we show that the number of solutions is bounded by an appropriate constant (depending singly-exponentially on $n$ and $l$) times the volume of the Newton polytope of the set of conditions. This improves a doubly-exponential estimate due to Hrushovski and Pillay. We illustrate the application of our estimates in two diophantine contexts: to counting transcendental lattice points on algebraic subvarieties of semi-abelian varieties, following Hrushovski and Pillay; and to counting the number of intersections between isogeny classes of elliptic curves and algebraic varieties, following Freitag and Scanlon. In both cases we obtain bounds which are singly-exponential (improving the known doubly-exponential bounds) and which exhibit the natural asymptotic growth with respect to the degrees of the equations involved.