I read that it is possible to find a solution to a nonlinear system of equations using Newton method and Jacobian matrix. But if I understood correctly, this finds just one solution, and which one exactly depends on the initial approximations.
Is it possible to find all the solutions which satisfy the given system?
Similar situation exists with univariate polynomials: Newton method finds just one solution but then one can divide ("deflate") the polynomial by the found root and proceed with finding the next root still using Newton method. Is there anything similar for multivariate polynomials?
If it is not possible to find all the solutions using Newton's method, are there any other methods one can employ?
Best Answer
In univariate case, if $p(x) = 0$ for $x = x_0$, then $p(x) = (x - x_0) q(x)$, so you can continue by looking for roots of polynomial $q(x)$. I'm not sure that anything like this is possible for multivariate polynomial systems. I suppose you can invent some similar things using resultants and Groebner bases, but I'm no expert in those.
In order to find all roots by Newton-Raphson iteration you can simply start it from many starting points. The more starting points you try, the more chance to detect all the roots. But this way you'll never be sure that you have found all of them (unless you use some theorems, e.g. Newton-Kantorovich theorem).
There are several practical algorithms for solving systems of polynomial equations. I'll only list some of the reliable ones, which are guaranteed to enclose all the zeros in some small sets. Suppose that you want to find all zeros of multivariate polynomial function $F(x)$ in domain $D = [0; 1]^n$.