We give explicit polynomial-sized (in @math n and @math k) semidefinite representations of the hyperbolicity cones associated with the elementary symmetric polynomials of degree @math k in @math n variables. These convex cones form a family of non-polyhedral outer approximations of the non-negative orthant that preserve low-dimensional faces while successively discarding high-dimensional faces. More generally we construct explicit semidefinite representations (polynomial-sized in @math k,m, and @math n) of the hyperbolicity cones associated with @math kth directional derivatives of polynomials of the form @math p(x)=det(?i=1nAixi) where the @math Ai are @math m×m symmetric matrices. These convex cones form an analogous family of outer approximations to any spectrahedral cone. Our representations allow us to use semidefinite programming to solve the linear cone programs associated with these convex cones as well as their (less well understood) dual cones.
@cite_2: A polynomial P in n complex variables is said to have the ''half-plane property'' (or Hurwitz property) if it is nonvanishing whenever all the variables lie in the open right half-plane. Such polynomials arise in combinatorics, reliability theory, electrical circuit theory and statistical mechanics. A particularly important case is when the polynomial is homogeneous and multiaffine: then it is the (weighted) generating polynomial of an r-uniform set system. We prove that the support (set of nonzero coefficients) of a homogeneous multiaffine polynomial with the half-plane property is necessarily the set of bases of a matroid. Conversely, we ask: For which matroids M does the basis generating polynomial P"B"("M") have the half-plane property? Not all matroids have the half-plane property, but we find large classes that do: all sixth-root-of-unity matroids, and a subclass of transversal (or cotransversal) matroids that we call ''nice.'' Furthermore, the class of matroids with the half-plane property is closed under minors, duality, direct sums, 2-sums, series and parallel connection, full-rank matroid union, and some special cases of principal truncation, principal extension, principal cotruncation and principal coextension. Our positive results depend on two distinct (and apparently unrelated) methods for constructing polynomials with the half-plane property: a determinant construction (exploiting ''energy'' arguments), and a permanent construction (exploiting the Heilmann-Lieb theorem on matching polynomials). We conclude with a list of open questions.
A spectrahedral representation of @math is implicit in the work of @cite_2 that studies the relationships between matroids and hyperbolic polynomials. observe that if @math is a matroid represented by the rows of a totally unimodular matrix @math then @math is the basis generating polynomial of @math . In particular, the uniform matroid @math is regular and has @math as its basis generating polynomial, yielding a symmetric determinantal representation of @math and hence a spectrahedral representation of @math .