A note on generalized companion pencils in the monomial basis (Q2293107)

Consider a polynomial \(q(\lambda):=\sum_{i=0}^{k}\lambda^{i}a_{i}\) with \(a_{k}\neq0\) over a field \(\mathbb{F}\). The authors define a generalized companion pencil for \(q(\lambda)\) to be a \(k\times k\) matrix pencil \(L(\lambda):=\lambda X+Y\) where: (i) the entries of \(X\) and \(Y\) lie in \(\mathbb{F}[a_{0},a_{1},\dots,a_{k}]\); and (ii) \(\det L(\lambda)\) is a nonzero multiple of \(q(\lambda)\). The authors prove some properties of these pencils. For example: 1) if the \(a_{i}\) are algebraically independent, then the Smith normal form of \(L(\lambda)\) is \(\operatorname*{diag}(I_{k-1},\) a\(_{k}^{-1}q(\lambda))\); 2) if each \(a_{i}\) appears in at most one entry of \(L(\lambda)\), then \(L(\lambda)\) has at most \(2k-1+\left\lfloor k/2\right\rfloor \) nonzero entries.