# Showing that the roots of a polynomial with descending positive coefficients lie in the unit disc.

Let $P(z)=a_nz^n+\cdots+a_0$ be a polynomial whose coefficients satisfy $$0<a_0<a_1<\cdots<a_n.$$

I want to show that the roots of $P$ live in unit disc. The obvious idea is to use Rouche's theorem, but that doesn't quite work here, at least with the choice $f(z)=a_nz^n, g(z)=$ (the rest).

Any ideas?

-

I think this is related to the Schur-Cohn criterion – Cocopuffs Aug 28 '12 at 19:28
– Hans Lundmark Aug 28 '12 at 19:40

## 1 Answer

The thing to do is to look instead at the polynomial $$Q(z) = (1-z)P(z) = (1-z)\left(\sum_{i=0}^n a_iz^i \right) = a_0 -a_n z^{n+1} + \sum_{i=1}^n (a_i-a_{i-1})z^i$$ Now, let $|z|>1$ be a root of $P(z)$, and hence a root of $Q(z)$. Therefore, we have $a_0 + \sum_{i=1}^n (a_i-a_{i-1})z^i = a_n z^{n+1}$ Then, we have \begin{aligned} |a_n z^{n+1}| &= |a_0 + \sum_{i=1}^n (a_i-a_{i-1})z^i| \\ & \le a_0 + \sum_{i=1}^n (a_i-a_{i-1})|z^i| \\ & < a_0|z^n| + \sum_{i=1}^n (a_i-a_{i-1})|z^n| \\ & = |a_n z^n|\end{aligned} a contradiction.

For a nice article on integer polynomials, see here. (Your problem is Proposition 10)

-

The proof looks short enough that you could present it as an answer. External links might be broken some time in the future... – Fabian Aug 28 '12 at 19:37
How did you get the idea to construct $Q(z)$? – MJD Aug 28 '12 at 20:17
+1  Very nice proof. – DonAntonio Aug 29 '12 at 2:52
yea, thanks, the construction of $Q(z)$, makes the condition $a_i$ are monotonic into practice. – van abel Sep 6 '12 at 8:59
{"extraction_info": {"found_math": true, "script_math_tex": 0, "script_math_asciimath": 0, "math_annotations": 0, "math_alttext": 0, "mathml": 0, "mathjax_tag": 0, "mathjax_inline_tex": 10, "mathjax_display_tex": 2, "mathjax_asciimath": 0, "img_math": 0, "codecogs_latex": 0, "wp_latex": 0, "mimetex.cgi": 0, "/images/math/codecogs": 0, "mathtex.cgi": 0}, "config": {"markdown_headings": true, "markdown_code": true, "boilerplate_config": {"ratio_threshold": 0.18, "absolute_threshold": 10, "end_threshold": 15, "enable": true}, "remove_buttons": true, "remove_image_figures": true, "remove_link_clusters": true, "table_config": {"min_rows": 2, "min_cols": 3, "format": "github"}, "remove_chinese": true, "remove_edit_buttons": true, "extract_latex": true}, "english_confidence": 0.8951942920684814, "perplexity_flag": "middle"}