Combinatorics and preservation of conically stable polynomials

Abstract

Given a closed, convex cone K⊆Rn, a multivariate polynomial f∈C[z] is called K-stable if the imaginary parts of its roots are not contained in the relative interior of K. If K is the nonnegative orthant, K-stability specializes to the usual notion of stability of polynomials. We develop generalizations of preservation operations and of combinatorial criteria from usual stability toward conic stability. A particular focus is on the cone of positive semidefinite matrices (psd-stability). In particular, we prove the preservation of psd-stability under a natural generalization of the inversion operator. Moreover, we give conditions on the support of psd-stable polynomials and characterize the support of special families of psd-stable polynomials.