Definite determinantal representations via orthostochastic matrices (Q2229698)

A necessary and sufficient condition to guarantee the existence of a definite determinantal representation of a bivariate polynomial by identifying its coefficients as scalar products (defined by orthostochastic matrices) of two vectors is obtained and employed for developing a method for computing a monic symmetric/Hermitian determinantal representation of a bivariate polynomial of a given degree. A computational relaxation to the determinantal problem is also investigated, taking into consideration the observation that it can be reformulated as a problem of expressing the vector of coefficients of the given polynomial as convex combinations of some specified points. Some examples complete the theoretical investigations.