Unimodularity of zeros of self-inversive polynomials (Q2448940)

The main result is the following generalization of a theorem of \textit{A. Cohn} [Math. Zeitschr. 14, 110--148 (1922; JFM 48.0083.01)]. Let \(h(z)\) be a nonzero complex polynomial of degree \(n\) having all its zeros in the closed unit disc \(| z| \leq 1.\) Then for \(d>n\) and any \(\lambda\) on the unit circle, the self-inversive polynomial \[ P^{\{\lambda\}}(z)=z^{d-n}h(z)+\lambda z^n\bar{h}(1/z) \] has all its zeros on the unit circle. Conversely, given a self-inversive polynomial \(P(z)\) having all its zeros on the unit circle, there is a polynomial \(h\) having all its zeros in \(| z| \leq 1\) such that \(P\) has the above representation. In particular, one can take \(h(z)=\frac{1}{d}P'(z).\) This result is applied to show that all zeros of the polynomials \[ P_k(z)=\frac{(2\pi)^{2k-1}}{(2k)!}\sum\limits_{j=0}^k(-1)^jB_{2j}B_{2k-2j}\binom{2k}{2j}z^{2j}+\zeta(2k-1)(z^{2k-1}+(-1)^kz) \] (where \(B_{2j}\) are the Bernoulli numbers) are on the unit circle. Similar results are proved for two other polynomial families of interest.