Abstract Vergleichsstellensätze for Preordered Semifields and Semirings I

Abstract

Real algebra is usually thought of as the study of certain kinds of preorders on fields and rings. Among its core themes are the separation theorems known as Positivstellens\"atze. However, there is a nascent subfield of real algebra which studies preordered semirings and semifields, which is motivated by applications to probability, graph theory and theoretical computer science, among others. Here, we contribute to this subfield by developing a number of foundational results for it, with two abstract Vergleichsstellens\"atze being our main theorems. Our first Vergleichsstellensatz states that every semifield preorder is the intersection of its total extensions. We apply this to derive our second main result, a Vergleichsstellensatz for certain non-Archimedean preordered semirings in which the homomorphisms to the tropical reals play an important role. We show how this result recovers the existing Vergleichsstellensatz of Strassen and (through the latter) the classical Positivstellensatz of Krivine--Kadison--Dubois.