[iboisvert]

I think I may have heard of a similar problem in a different field, computational thermodynamics. Solutions to a set of equations may be real or complex. The nonlinear solvers worked with real numbers exclusively and from time to time would not converge to any solution. Apparently if one used a solver that worked with complex numbers, the solver would reach a solution in real space more often than exclusively real solvers. Of course solving was much more expensive. Your explanation seems to fit here too

[Grimblewald]

Interesting, thanks for sharing! Do you have any papers or other publicly available works to share that discuss this? I'd be very interested in reading about it.

[iboisvert]

I originally heard about this many years ago at an informal talk, but I was able to find this paper that sounds like the same problem and should have pretty good references https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00981...

[11101010001100]

I'm guessing the complex numbers add the right kind of 'fuzziness'. But please share any references if you have.