Intersections of Convex Hulls of Polynomial Shifts and Critical Points

Abstract

Let $p(z)$ be a complex polynomial of degree $n\ge 2$. For each $c\in\mathbb{C}$, let $K_c$ denote the convex hull of the zeros of $p(z)+c$, and let $K'$ denote the convex hull of the zeros of $p'(z)$. We prove that $$\bigcap_{c\in\mathbb{C}} K_c = K',$$ by combining a strict separating hyperplane argument with a half-plane non-surjectivity theorem for polynomials without critical points (proved via analytic continuation, the monodromy theorem and Liouville's Theorem). We also characterize when $K_0=K'$ in terms of the multiplicities of the zeros of $p(z)$ that form the vertices of $K_0$. As an application, we obtain a partial result toward the Schmeisser's conjecture: if all zeros of $p$ lie in the closed unit disk, then for every $ζ\in K'$ the disk $|z-ζ|\le \sqrt{1-|ζ|^2}$ contains a critical point of $p(z)$. Finally, we refine a recent barycentric bound in \cite{Zha26+} by showing that there is always a critical point within distance $\sqrt{\frac{n-2}{n-1}}\sqrt{1-|G|^2}$ of the centroid $G$ of the zeros.