An Ansatz for the asymptotics of hypergeometric multisums

Sequences that are defined by multisums of hypergeometric terms with compact support occur frequently in enumeration problems of combinatorics, algebraic geometry and perturbative quantum field theory. The standard recipe to study the asymptotic expansion of such sequences is to find a recurrence satisfied by them, convert it into a differential equation satisfied by their generating series, and analyze the singularities in the complex plane. We propose a shortcut by constructing directly from the structure of the hypergeometric term a finite set, for which we conjecture (and in some cases prove) that it contains all the singularities of the generating series. Our construction of this finite set is given by the solution set of a balanced system of polynomial equations of a rather special form, reminiscent of the Bethe ansatz. The finite set can also be identified with the set of critical values of a potential function, as well as with the evaluation of elements of an additive K-theory group by a regulator function. We give a proof of our conjecture in some special cases, and we illustrate our results with numerous examples.