Linear Principal Minor Polynomials: Hyperbolic Determinantal Inequalities and Spectral Containment

Abstract

Abstract A linear principal minor polynomial or lpm polynomial is a linear combination of principal minors of a symmetric matrix. By restricting to the diagonal, lpm polynomials are in bijection with multiaffine polynomials. We show that this establishes a one-to-one correspondence between homogeneous multiaffine stable polynomials and PSD-stable lpm polynomials. This yields new construction techniques for hyperbolic polynomials and allows us to find an explicit degree 3 hyperbolic polynomial in six variables some of whose Rayleigh differences are not sums of squares. We further generalize the well-known Fisher–Hadamard and Koteljanskii inequalities from determinants to PSD-stable lpm polynomials. We investigate the relationship between the associated hyperbolicity cones and conjecture a relationship between the eigenvalues of a symmetric matrix and the values of certain lpm polynomials evaluated at that matrix. We refer to this relationship as spectral containment.