The convex Positivstellensatz in a free algebra

Given a monic linear pencil L in g variables let D_L be its positivity domain, i.e., the set of all g-tuples X of symmetric matrices of all sizes making L(X) positive semidefinite. Because L is a monic linear pencil, D_L is convex with interior, and conversely it is known that convex bounded noncommutative semialgebraic sets with interior are all of the form D_L. The main result of this paper establishes a perfect noncommutative Nichtnegativstellensatz on a convex semialgebraic set. Namely, a noncommutative polynomial p is positive semidefinite on D_L if and only if it has a weighted sum of squares representation with optimal degree bounds: p = s^* s + \sum_j f_j^* L f_j, where s, f_j are vectors of noncommutative polynomials of degree no greater than 1/2 deg(p). This noncommutative result contrasts sharply with the commutative setting, where there is no control on the degrees of s, f_j and assuming only p nonnegative, as opposed to p strictly positive, yields a clean Positivstellensatz so seldom that such cases are noteworthy.Comment: 22 page

On real one-sided ideals in a free algebra

In classical and real algebraic geometry there are several notions of the radical of an ideal I. There is the vanishing radical defined as the set of all real polynomials vanishing on the real zero set of I, and the real radical defined as the smallest real ideal containing I. By the real Nullstellensatz they coincide. This paper focuses on extensions of these to the free algebra R of noncommutative real polynomials in x=(x_1,...,x_g) and x^*=(x_1^*,...,x_g^*). We work with a natural notion of the (noncommutative real) zero set V(I) of a left ideal I in the free algebra. The vanishing radical of I is the set of all noncommutative polynomials p which vanish on V(I). In this paper our quest is to find classes of left ideals I which coincide with their vanishing radical. We completely succeed for monomial ideals and homogeneous principal ideals. We also present the case of principal univariate ideals with a degree two generator and find that it is very messy. Also we give an algorithm (running under NCAlgebra) which checks if a left ideal is radical or is not, and illustrate how one uses our implementation of it.Comment: v1: 31 pages; v2: 32 page