On the traces of elements of modular group (Q1932633)

Let \(A=I_2+2E_{12}\) and \(B=I_2-2E_{21}\), both elements of the classical modular group. Then \[ tr(A^{m_1}B^{n_1}\cdots A^{m_k}B^{n_k})=p_k(m_1,n_1,\cdots,m_k,n_k), \] where \(p_k=p_k(x_1,y_1,\cdots,x_k,y_k)\) is a polynomial in \(x_j, y_j\;(1\leq j \leq k)\) with integer coefficients. Now let \(\sigma\) be any sequence of \(\pm\) signs of length \(2k\). Finally let \(p_k^{\sigma}\) denote the polynomial obtained from \(p_k\) by the following substitution \[ p_k^{\sigma}(x_1,y_1, \cdots,x_k,y_k)=p_k(\pm(1+x_1),\pm(1+y_1),\cdots,\pm(1+x_k),\pm(1+y_k)). \] The authors prove that, for all \(k>0\) and all \(\sigma\), the coefficients of \(p_k^{\sigma}\) are of the same sign. This proves a conjecture of \textit{W. Bergweiler} and \textit{A. Eremenko} [``Goldberg's constant'', preprint].