The Marcus-de Oliveira conjecture, bilinear forms, and cones (Q1300833)

The well-known determinantal conjecture of \textit{G. N. de Oliveira} [Research problem: Normal matrices. Linear Multilinear Algebra 12, 153-154 (1982)] and \textit{M. Marcus} [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 22, 1137-1149 (1973; Zbl 0255.15020)] (OMC) confines the determinant \(\det(X+Y)\) of the sum of normal \(n{\times}n\) matrices \(X, Y\) to a certain region in the complex plane. Even the subconjecture obtained by specializing it to the case \(n = 4, X\) Hermitian and \(Y\) normal is still open. In the paper under review the author considers the subconjecture as a special case of an assertion concerning a certain family of bilinear forms on \({\mathbb R}^{16}{\times}{\mathbb C}^{16}\) and proposes a method that may prove useful for establishing it for many of such matrix pairs, independent of their spectrum; in particular he applies it successfully in the case of a prominent unitary similarity of \textit{S. W. Drury}'s threatening of OMC [Linear Algebra Appl. 168, 251-257 (1992; Zbl 0756.15008)]. He remarks that the above mentioned assertion, extended naturally to pairs of complex arguments is false and the ideas outlined inapplicable for the general OMC (\(n = 4\)) case. He also reports on some computer experiments, formulates OMC (\(n = 4\)) as a statement about cones, and finds it would be implied by establishing the emptiness of certain semialgebraic sets defined by systems of quadratic and linear relations.