Symmetric determinantal representation of polynomials (Q417498)

A polynomial \(p(x) \in \mathbb{R}[x]\) of degree \(d\) with \(n\) variables \(x = (x_1, \dots, x_n)\) is said to admit a determinantal representation if it can be written as \(p(x) = \det(A_0 + \sum_{i=1}^nx_iA_i)\), where \(A_0 + \sum_{i=1}^nx_iA_i\) is called an affine linear pencil whose matrices are \(A_0, \dots, A_d \in \mathbb{R}^{N\times N}\), \(N\in \mathbb{N}\). The author gives an elementary proof of a result due to \textit{J. W. Helton}, \textit{S. A. McCullough} and \textit{V. Vinnikov} [J. Funct. Anal. 240, No. 1, 105--191 (2006; Zbl 1135.47005)], which says that any polynomial \(p(x) \in \mathbb{R}[x]\) can be written as the determinant of a symmetric affine linear pencil. He gives explicit determinantal representation formulas and extend the results to polynomials with coefficients in a ring of characteristic different from \(2\).