The analogue of Hilbert's 1888 theorem for even symmetric forms (Q503810)

The authors prove an analogue of Hilbert's famous theorem of 1888: If \(f\) is a positive semidefinite (psd) real form in \(n\) variables of degree \(2d\), then \(f\) is a sum of squares (sos) if and only if \(n=2\) or \(d=1\) or \((n,2d)=(3,4)\). A form \(f(x_1,\ldots,x_n)\) is \textit{symmetric} if \(f(x_{\sigma 1},\ldots,x_{\sigma n})=f(x_1,\ldots,x_n)\) for all \(\sigma\in S_n\), and is \textit{even} if each variable has even degree in every term. The authors investigate whether every even symmetric psd form is sos. Let \({\mathcal S}{\mathcal P} ^e_{n,2d}\) and \({\mathcal S}{\Sigma} ^e_{n,2d}\) denote, respectively, the sets of even symmetric psd and even symmetric sos forms in \(n\) variables of degree \(2d\), and put \({\Delta}_{n,2d}={\mathcal S}{\mathcal P} ^e_{n,2d}\backslash{\mathcal S}{\Sigma} ^e_{n,2d}\). Clearly \({\mathcal S}{\Sigma} ^e_{n,2d}\subseteq{\mathcal S}{\mathcal P} ^e_{n,2d}\), so the question is when \({\Delta}_{n,2d}\) is empty. The answer has been established by several authors in all cases except in the following: \((n,8)\) for \(n\geq 5\), \((3,2d)\) for \(d\geq 6\) and \((n,2d)\) for \(n\geq 4, d\geq 5\). The authors prove that the answer is negative in all these outstanding cases and thus establish the main theorem: An even symmetric psd form of degree \(2d\) in \(n\) variables is sos if and only if \(n=2\) or \(d=1\) or \((n,2d)=(n,4)\) with \(n\geq 3\) or \((n,2d)=(3,8)\). This result is very similar to Hilbert's and the proof also follows Hilbert's approach. The authors use known explicit examples and the degree jumping principle (Theorem 2.3) to reduce the problem to the following basic cases: \((n,8)\) for \(n\geq 4\), \((n,10)\) for \(n\geq 3\) and \((n,12)\) for \(n\geq 3\) (Theorem 2.4). These basic cases are then proved in Theorems 3.1, 4.1 and 4.6, and the article is concluded with a list of explicit examples used.