Problem

Source: Macedonian TST 2022, P2

Tags: algebra, polynomial, Symmetric inequality, inequalities



Let $n \geq 2$ be a fixed positive integer and let $a_{0},a_{1},...,a_{n-1}$ be real numbers. Assume that all of the roots of the polynomial $P(x) = x^n+a_{n-1}x^{n-1}+a_{n-2}x^{n-2}+...+a_{1}x+a_{0}$ are strictly positive real numbers. Determine the smallest possible value of $\frac{a_{n-1}^{2}}{a_{n-2}}$ over all such polynomials. Proposed by Nikola Velov