A quaternionic Bernstein theorem (Q6042132)

This article addresses a natural question: does the following complex result, due to Bernstein, generalize to the real algebra of quaternions? Theorem 1. Let \(p(z)\) and \(q(z)\) be two complex polynomials of degrees \(d,e\) with \(d \leq e\). If \(q(z)\) has all its zeros in \(\{|z| \leq 1\}\) and \(|p(z)| \leq |q(z)|\) for \(|z| = 1\), then \(|p'(z)| \leq |q'(z)|\) for \(|z| = 1\). In the complex case, the previous theorem can be used to prove \textit{Bernstein's inequality}: for every complex polynomial \(p\) of degree \(d\), \[ \max_{|z|=1}|p'|\leq d\max_{|z|=1}|p|.\tag{1} \] Equality holds in (1) if, and only if, \(p(z)=az^d\) for some \(a\in\mathbb{C}\). The present article shows that Theorem 1 only generalizes to quaternions under an additional assumption on the polynomial \(q\) and after a suitable modification of the inequality \(|p'(z)| \leq |q'(z)|\). Useful examples prove that this new quaternionic bound is sharp and the additional assumption on the polynomial \(q\) is essential. As a corollary to the quaternionic analog of Theorem 1, the author derives the quaternionic Bernstein inequality, which is the perfect analogue of (1). The final part of the article rephrases the quaternionic Bernstein inequality in terms of four-dimensional zonal harmonics and Gegenbauer polynomials.