Real stable polynomials and the alternatingly increasing property

Abstract

In this paper, we first present a criterion for the real stability of recursive polynomials by applying the characterization of Borcea and Brändén concerning linear operators preserving stability. As applications, we derive some real stability results occurred in the literature in a unified manner. Moreover, we prove the real-rootedness of peak polynomials in bicolored dyck paths and ternary polynomials.Second, based on the h-polynomials from combinatorial geometry, we use real stability to get two criteria for interlacing property of zeros between a polynomial and its reciprocal polynomial, which in particular imply the alternatingly increasing property of the original polynomial or its reciprocal polynomial. These criteria extend a result of Brändén and Solus and unify such properties for many combinatorial polynomials, including ascent polynomials for k-ary words, descent polynomials on signed Stirling permutations and colored permutations, q-analog of descent polynomials on colored permutations and descent polynomials on color-signed permutations. Furthermore, we also obtain a recurrence relation and zero-interlacing property of q-analog of descent polynomials on colored permutations that extend some results of Brändén and Brenti. In addition, as an application of weak Hurwitz stability, we get the alternatingly increasing property and zero-interlacing property for two kinds of peak polynomials on the dual set of Stirling permutations.