A Necessary and Sufficient Condition for Local Maxima of Polynomial Modulus Over Unit Disc

Abstract

An important quantity associated with a complex polynomial $p(z)$ is $\Vert p \Vert_\infty$, the maximum of its modulus over the unit disc $D$. We prove, $z_* \in D$ is a local maximum of $|p(z)|$ if and only if $a_*$ satisfies, $z_*=p(z_*)|p'(z_*)|/p'(z_*)|p(z_*)|$, i.e. it is proportional to its corresponding Newton direction. This explicit formula gives rise to novel iterative algorithms for computing $\Vert p \Vert_\infty$. We describe two such algorithms, including a Newton-like method and present some visualization of their performance.