On the Eneström-Kakeya theorem (Q5896443)

As an extension of a classical result of Eneström and Kakeya (if \(a_ n\geq a_{n-1}\geq a_{n-2}\geq...\geq a_ 1>0\), then for \(| z| >1\), \(\sum^{n}_{k=0}a_ kz^ k\neq 0)\), it was proved by Joyal, Labelle and Rahman that if \(p(z)=\sum^{n}_{k=0}a_ kz^ k\) is a polynomial of (exact) degree n (\(n\geq 1)\) such that (1) \(a_ n\geq a_{n-1}\geq a_{n-2}\geq...\geq a_ 1\geq a_ 0\), then p(z) has all its zeros in the disc (2) \(| z|\leq (a_ n-a_ 0+| a_ 0|)/| a_ n|.\) In this paper the authors show that the disc given by (2) can be replaced by an annulus with a smaller outer radius. They also show that the results obtained by their theorem are always at least as good as those obtained by (2) and give some examples to illustrate that in some cases the results obtained by their theorem are very much better than those obtained by (2).