Sharp precision in hensel lifting for bivariate polynomial factorization

Popularized by Zassenhaus in the seventies, several algorithms for factoring polynomials use a so-called lifting and recombination scheme. Concerning bivariate polynomials, we present a new algorithm for the recombination stage that requires a lifting up to precision twice the total degree of the polynomial to be factored. Its cost is dominated by the computation of reduced echelon solution bases of linear systems. We show that our bound on precision is asymptotically optimal.