Positivity of continuous piecewise polynomials

Abstract

Real algebraic geometry provides certificates for the positivity of polynomials on semi-algebraic sets by expressing them as a suitable combination of sums of squares and the defining inequalitites. We show how Putinar's theorem for strictly positive polynomials on compact sets can be applied in the case of strictly positive piecewise polynomials on a simplicial complex. In the 1-dimensional case, we improve this result to cover all non-negative piecewise polynomials and give explicit degree bounds.