Richards' static Gauss–Lucas conjecture

For a bounded convex set KCK\subset\mathbb{C}, an ϵ>0\epsilon>0, and a polynomial pp, let KϵK_\epsilon be the ϵ\epsilon-neighborhood of KK and let Z(p,K)Z(p,K) denote the number of zeros of pp in KK. Richards' static Gauss–Lucas conjecture. For every bounded convex set KCK\subset\mathbb{C} and every ϵ>0\epsilon>0, there is a constant CK,ϵ(0,1)C_{K,\epsilon}\in(0,1) such that, for every polynomial pp of sufficiently large degree, if

Z(p,K)deg(p)>CK,ϵ,\frac{Z(p,K)}{\deg(p)}>C_{K,\epsilon},

then

Z(p,Kϵ)Z(p,K)1.Z(p',K_\epsilon)\geq Z(p,K)-1.

This conjecture proposes a finite-degree principle underlying the asymptotic Gauss–Lucas theorem: if sufficiently many zeros of a high-degree polynomial lie in a convex set, then nearly as many critical points lie in every prescribed neighborhood of that set. Its resolution is not given in the source.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Trevor J. Richards, “Some Recent Results on the Geometry of Complex Polynomials: The Gauss–Lucas Theorem, Polynomial Lemniscates, Shape Analysis, and Conformal Equivalence”, arXiv:1910.01159 (2020).

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