English

Operator Positivstellens\"atze for noncommutative polynomials positive on matrix convex sets

Operator Algebras 2016-10-06 v2 Functional Analysis

Abstract

This article studies algebraic certificates of positivity for noncommutative (nc) operator-valued polynomials on matrix convex sets, such as the solution set DLD_L, called a free Hilbert spectrahedron, of the linear operator inequality (LOI) L(X)=A0I+j=1gAjXj0,L(X)=A_0\otimes I+\sum_{j=1}^g A_{j}\otimes X_j\succeq 0, where AjA_j are self-adjoint linear operators on a separable Hilbert space, XjX_j matrices and II is an identity matrix. If AjA_j are matrices, then L(X)0L(X)\succeq 0 is called a linear matrix inequality (LMI) and DLD_L a free spectrahedron. For monic LMIs, i.e., A0=IA_0=I, and nc matrix-valued polynomials the certificates of positivity were established by Helton, Klep and McCollough in a series of articles with the use of the theory of complete positivity from operator algebras and classical separation arguments from real algebraic geometry. Since the full strength of the theory of complete positivity is not restricted to finite dimensions, but works well also in the infinite-dimensional setting, we use it to tackle our problems. First we extend the characterization of the inclusion DL1DL2D_{L_1}\subseteq D_{L_2} from monic LMIs to monic LOIs. As a corollary one obtains the description of a polar dual of a free Hilbert spectrahedron DLD_L and its projection, called a free Hilbert spectrahedrop. Using this characterization in a separation argument, we obtain a certificate for multivariate matrix-valued nc polynomials FF positive semidefinite on a free Hilbert spectrahedron defined by a monic LOI. Replacing the separation argument by an operator Fej\'er-Riesz theorem enables us to extend this certificate, in the univariate case, to operator-valued polynomials FF. Finally, focusing on the algebraic description of the equality DL1=DL2D_{L_1}=D_{L_2}, we remove the assumption of boundedness from the description in the LMIs case by an extended analysis. However, the description does not extend to LOIs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1602.00765,
  title  = {Operator Positivstellens\"atze for noncommutative polynomials positive on matrix convex sets},
  author = {Aljaž Zalar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.00765},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

v2: 47 pages, several minor corrections; v1: 48 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1102.4859 by other authors

R2 v1 2026-06-22T12:41:34.171Z