Real Stability and Log Concavity are coNP-Hard

Abstract

Real-stable, Lorentzian, and log-concave polynomials are well-studied classes of polynomials, and have been powerful tools in resolving several conjectures. We show that the problems of deciding whether a polynomial of fixed degree is real stable or log concave are coNP-hard. On the other hand, while all homogeneous real-stable polynomials are Lorentzian and all Lorentzian polynomials are log concave on the positive orthant, the problem of deciding whether a polynomial of fixed degree is Lorentzian can be solved in polynomial time.