Newton's identities and positivity of trace class integral operators

Abstract: We provide a countable set of conditions based on elementary symmetric polynomials that are necessary and sufficient for a trace class integral operator to be positive semidefinite, which is an important cornerstone for quantum theory in phase-space representation. We also present a new, efficiently computable algorithm based on Newton's identities. Our test of positivity is much more sensitive than the ones given by the linear entropy and Robertson-Schr\"odinger's uncertainty relations; our first condition is equivalent to the non-negativity of the linear entropy.