Counterexamples to the Neggers-Stanley conjecture

The Neggers-Stanley conjecture (also known as the Poset conjecture) asserts that the polynomial counting the linear extensions of a partially ordered set on $\{1,2,...,p\}$ by their number of descents has real zeros only. We provide counterexamples to this conjecture.Comment: 4 page

On operators on polynomials preserving real-rootedness and the Neggers-Stanley Conjecture

We refine a technique used in a paper by Schur on real-rooted polynomials. This amounts to an extension of a theorem of Wagner on Hadamard products of Toeplitz matrices. We also apply our results to polynomials for which the Neggers-Stanley Conjecture is known to hold. More precisely, we settle interlacing properties for $E$-polynomials of series-parallel posets and column-strict labelled Ferrers posets

Hyperbolicity cones of elementary symmetric polynomials are spectrahedral

We prove that the hyperbolicity cones of elementary symmetric polynomials are spectrahedral, i.e., they are slices of the cone of positive semidefinite matrices. The proof uses the matrix--tree theorem, an idea already present in Choe et al.Comment: 9 pages. Some typos corrected. Details added. To appear in Optimization Letter