Discrete Concavity and Zeros of Polynomials

Murota et al. have recently developed a theory of discrete convex analysis as a framework to solve combinatorial optimization problems using ideas from continuous optimization. This theory concerns M-convex functions on jump systems. We introduce here a family of M-concave functions arising naturally from polynomials (over the field of Puiseux series) with prescribed non-vanishing properties. We also provide a short proof of Speyer's “hive theorem” which he used to give a new proof of Horn's conjecture on eigenvalues of sums of Hermitian matrices. Due to limited space a more coherent treatment and proofs will appear elsewhere.