Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2021 / ib / Paper 3 / 9E / b / Solution

Expand $\det (A+tB)$ by multilinearity of the determinant in its columns. The coefficient of $t^j$ is a sum of determinants obtained by choosing $j$ columns from $B$ and the remaining columns from $A$. Since the columns of $B$ span a space of dimension $k$, every choice of more than $k$ columns from $B$ is linearly dependent. All coefficients of $t^j$ for $j>k$ therefore vanish, so

If $k=n$, then $B$ is invertible and the coefficient of $t^n$ is $\det B\ne 0$. Hence the degree is exactly $n$.

For a zero-polynomial example with $k=1$, takeThen $\mathrm{rank}B=1$, while $\det (A+tB)=0$ for every $t$.

Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.