Sum--of--squares results for polynomials related to the Bessis--Moussa--Villani conjecture

We show that the polynomial S_{m,k}(A,B), that is the sum of all words in noncommuting variables A and B having length m and exactly k letters equal to B, is not equal to a sum of commutators and Hermitian squares in the algebra R<X,Y> where X^2=A and Y^2=B, for all even values of m and k with 6 <= k <= m-10, and also for (m,k)=(12,6). This leaves only the case (m,k)=(16,8) open. This topic is of interest in connection with the Lieb--Seiringer formulation of the Bessis--Moussa--Villani conjecture, which asks whether the trace of S_{m,k}(A,B)) is nonnegative for all positive semidefinite matrices A and B. These results eliminate the possibility of using "descent + sum-of-squares" to prove the BMV conjecture. We also show that S_{m,4}(A,B) is equal to a sum of commutators and Hermitian squares in R<A,B> when m is even and not a multiple of 4, which implies that the trace of S_{m,4}(A,B) is nonnegative for all Hermitian matrices A and B, for these values of m.