On permanents and the zeros of rook polynomials

The concept of rook polynomial of a “chessboard” may be generalized to the rook polynomial of an arbitrary rectangular matrix. A conjecture that the rook polynomials of “chessboards” have only real zeros is thus carried over to the rook polynomials of nonnegative matrices. This paper proves these conjectures, and establishes interlacing properties for the zeros of the rook polynomials of a positive matrix and the matrix obtained by striking any one row or any one column.