Polynomial Definiteness and Semidefiniteness

Abstract

A reduction procedure is described for determining the sign definiteness and semidefiniteness of an mth order, n dimensional real polynomial. The higher order polynomial is reduced to a quadratic form in new variables such that conditions can be obtained on the coefficients of the individual terms of the original polynomial. The procedure presents sufficient conditions only. It has been found, however, to be a relatively systematic technique for engineering stability problems where alternate effective methods for determining sign definiteness are unknown.