Matrix Polynomials with Specified Eigenvalues

This work concerns the distance in 2-norm from a matrix polynomial to a nearest polynomial with a specified number of its eigenvalues at specified locations in the complex plane. Perturbations are allowed only on the constant coefficient matrix. Singular value optimization formulas are derived for these distances facilitating their computation. The singular value optimization problems, when the number of specified eigenvalues is small, can be solved numerically by exploiting the Lipschitzness and piece-wise analyticity of the singular values with respect to the parameters.