Properties of the cone of polynomials of fixed degree that preserve nonnegative matrices

Abstract: As was detailed by Loewy and London in [Linear and Multilinear Algebra 6 (1978/79), no.~1, 83–90], the cone of polynomials that preserve the nonnegativity of matrices may play an important role in the solution to the nonnegative inverse eigenvalue problem. In this paper, we start by showing the cone generated by polynomials of degree greater than or equal to 2n that preserve nonnegative matrices of order is non-polyhedral. Next, a question posed by Loewy in [Linear Algebra and its Applications, 676(2023), 267–276], about how negative the center term can be in a degree 2n polynomial is answered. We extend this to show that a polynomial that preserves nonnegative matrices of order n can have it’s the largest term, in absolute value, be arbitrarily negative with the remaining coefficients being one. We conclude, by exploring properties of the measure of the cone when restricted to the unit sphere and by proving some initial bounds of that volume.

Keywords: Polynomial; Nonnegative matrix; Cone