Zero-free intervals of chromatic polynomials of hypergraphs (Q2005730)

For an integer \(k\geq 1\), a weak proper \(k\)-coloring of a hypergraph \(\mathcal{H}=(\mathcal{V},\mathcal{E})\) is a mapping \(\varphi:\mathcal{V}\to\{1,\dots,k\}\) such that \(e\in\mathcal{E}\Rightarrow|\varphi(e)|\ge2\) [\textit{P. Erdős} and \textit{A. Hajnal}, Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hung. 17, 61--99 (1966; Zbl 0151.33701)]; the chromatic polynomial \((\mathcal{H},\lambda)\) is the function which counts the number of weak, proper \(k\)-colorings of \(\mathcal{H}\) whenever \(\lambda=k\) is a positive integer. A cycle \(C\) in \(\mathcal{H}\) is an alternating sequence of vertices and edges \((v_1,e_1,v_2,e_2,\dots,v_t,e_t,v_1)\), where \(t\ge2\); \(v_1,\dots,v_t\) are pairwise distinct vertices, and \(e_1,\dots,e_t\) are pairwise distinct edges, such that \(\{v_i,v_{i+1}\}\subseteq e_i\) for \(1\le i\le t\), \(v_{t+1}=v_1\). \(\mathcal{L}_0\) is the set of hypergraphs in which each edge has even size and each cycle contains among the vertices of its component edges two which are the members of a 2-vertex edge of the hypergraph. Theorem 1.2 extends Corollary 2.3 in [\textit{K. Dohmen}, Arch. Math. 64, No. 2, 159--162 (1995; Zbl 0813.05048)] as follows: If \(\mathcal{H}=(\mathcal{V},\mathcal{E})\) is a hypergraph in \(\mathcal{L}_0\), then \((-1)^{|\mathcal{V}|}P(\mathcal{H},\lambda)>0\) for all real \(\lambda<0\). Using theorems like the foregoing, the authors continue their study of the distribution of zeros of \((\mathcal{H},\lambda)\) [\textit{R. Zhang} and \textit{F. Dong}, Eur. J. Comb. 64, 138--151 (2017; Zbl 1365.05140)]; here they are concerned with the existence of families \(\mathcal{H}\) for which \((\mathcal{H},\lambda)\) has no real zeros in certain intervals of \(\mathbb{R}^1\). \S5 proposes two problems for further study.