The largest 5th pivot may be the root of a 61st degree polynomial

Abstract This paper introduces a number of new techniques in the study of the famous question from numerical linear algebra: what is the largest possible growth factor when performing Gaussian elimination with complete pivoting? This question is highly complex, due to a complicated set of polynomial inequalities that need to be simultaneously satisfied. This paper introduces the JuMP + Groebner basis + discriminant polynomial approach as well as the use of interval arithmetic computations. Thus, we are introducing a marriage of numerical and exact mathematical computations. In 1988, Day and Peterson performed numerical optimization on $n=5$ with NPSOL and obtained a largest observed value of $4.1325\ldots$. This same best value was reproduced by Gould with LANCELOT in 1991. We ran extensive comparable experiments with the modern software tool JuMP and also saw the same value $4.1325\ldots$. While the combinatorial explosion of possibilities prevents us from knowing whether there may not be a larger maximum, we succeed in obtaining the exact mathematical value: the number $4.1325\ldots$ is exactly the root of a 61st-degree polynomial provided in this work, and is a maximum, given the equality constraints seen by JuMP. In light of the numerics, we pose the conjecture that this lower bound is indeed the maximum. We also apply this technique to $n = 6$, $7$ and $8$. Furthermore, in 1969, an upper bound of $4\frac{17}{18}\approx 4.94$ was produced for the maximum possible growth when $n = 5$. We slightly lower this upper bound to $4.84$.