Xiangfei Li

Cohn Trace Polynomials: Root Localization, Strict Log-Concavity, and Rearrangement Inequalities

We study the one-variable trace polynomials obtained from words in the rank-two free group by the Cohn normalization. We prove that every nontrivial word has all its zeros in a fixed sector about the negative real axis; after the marking involution, this is equivalently a transla...