The Effective Lasserre's Perturbative Positivstellensatz

Abstract

We study sum-of-squares (SOS) certificates for nonnegative polynomials $p$ on $\mathbb{R}^d$ and their implications for polynomial optimization over unbounded domains. Building on Lasserre's perturbation approach, we consider SOS representations of $p$ augmented by weighted polynomial tails of the form $\sum_{n=0}^N (x\cdot x)^n/(n!)^t$ for $0 < t < 1$. Our main result provides an explicit quantitative bound on the truncation order $N$ required to achieve an $\varepsilon$-accurate certificate. Using positivity properties of the Mehler kernel and techniques inspired by polynomial kernel methods, we show that $N$ grows polynomially in $1/\varepsilon$, with rate $N = O((\|p\|/\varepsilon)^{1/(1-t)})$.