Defect indices of powers of a contraction

Let A be a contraction on a Hilbert space H. The defect index d_A of A is, by definition, the dimension of the closure of the range of I-A^∗A. We prove that (1) d_Aⁿ?nd_A for all n?0, (2) if, in addition, Aⁿ converges to 0 in the strong operator topology and d_A=1, then d_Aⁿ=n for all finite n,0?n?dimH, and (3) d_A=d_A^∗ implies d_Aⁿ=d_A^n∗ for all n?0. The norm-one index k_A of A is defined as sup{n?0:‖Aⁿ‖=1}. When dimH=m<∞, a lower bound for k_A was obtained before: k_A?(m/d_A)-1. We show that the equality holds if and only if either A is unitary or the eigenvalues of A are all in the open unit disc, d_A divides m and d_Aⁿ=nd_A for all n, 1?n?m/d_A. We also consider the defect index of f(A) for a finite Blaschke product f and show that d_f(A)=d_Aⁿ, where n is the number of zeros of f.     

Least squares solutions to AX = B for bisymmetric matrices under a central principal submatrix constraint and the optimal approximation

A matrix A∈R^n×n is called a bisymmetric matrix if its elements a_i,j satisfy the properties a_i,j=a_j,i and a_i,j=a_n-j+1,n-i+1 for 1?i,j?n. This paper considers least squares solutions to the matrix equation AX=B for A under a central principal submatrix constraint and the optimal approximation. A central principal submatrix is a submatrix obtained by deleting the same number of rows and columns in edges of a given matrix. We first discuss the specified structure of bisymmetric matrices and their central principal submatrices. Then we give some necessary and sufficient conditions for the solvability of the least squares problem, and derive the general representation of the solutions. Moreover, we also obtain the expression of the solution to the corresponding optimal approximation problem.     

The Jordan canonical form for a class of zero-one matrices

Let f:N→N be a function. Let A_n=(a_ij) be the n×n matrix defined by a_ij=1 if i=f(j) for some i and j and a_ij=0 otherwise. We describe the Jordan canonical form of the matrix A_n in terms of the directed graph for which A_n is the adjacency matrix. We discuss several examples including a connection with the Collatz 3n+1 conjecture.     

Bijective linear maps on semimodules spanned by Boolean matrices of fixed rank

Let M_m,n(B) be the semimodule of all m×n Boolean matrices where B is the Boolean algebra with two elements. Let k be a positive integer such that 2?k?min(m,n). Let B(m,n,k) denote the subsemimodule of M_m,n(B) spanned by the set of all rank k matrices. We show that if T is a bijective linear mapping on B(m,n,k), then there exist permutation matrices P and Q such that T(A)=PAQ for all A∈B(m,n,k) or m=n and T(A)=PA^tQ for all A∈B(m,n,k). This result follows from a more general theorem we prove concerning the structure of linear mappings on B(m,n,k) that preserve both the weight of each matrix and rank one matrices of weight k². Here the weight of a Boolean matrix is the number of its nonzero entries.     

To what extent is a large space of matrices not closed under product?

Let (K) be a field. Given an arbitrary linear subspace V of M_n(K) of codimension less than n-1, a classical result states that V generates the (K)-algebra M_n(K). Here, we strengthen this statement in three ways: we show that M_n(K) is spanned by the products of the form AB with (A,B)∈V²; we prove that every matrix in M_n(K) can be decomposed into a product of matrices of V; finally, when V is a linear perplane of M_n(K) and n>2, we show that every matrix in M_n(K) is a product of two elements of V.     

Products of two involutions with prescribed eigenvalues and some applications

Let F be a field. In [Djokovic, Product of two involutions, Arch. Math. 18 (1967) 582-584] it was proved that a matrix A∈F^n×n can be written as A=BC, for some involutions B,C∈F^n×n, if and only if A is similar to A^-1. In this paper we describe the possible eigenvalues of the matrices B and C.As a consequence, in case charF≠2, we describe the possible similarity classes of (P₁₁⊕P₂₂)P^-1, when the nonsingular matrix P=[P_ij]∈F^n×n, i,j∈{1,2} and P₁₁∈F^s×s, varies.When F is an algebraically closed field and charF≠2, we also describe the possible similarity classes of [A_ij]∈F^n×n, i,j∈{1,2}, when A₁₁ and A₂₂ are square zero matrices and A₁₂ and A₂₁ vary.     

Hoffman polynomials of nonnegative irreducible matrices and strongly connected digraphs

For a nonnegative n × n matrix A, we find that there is a polynomial f(x)∈R[x] such that f(A) is a positive matrix of rank one if and only if A is irreducible. Furthermore, we show that the lowest degree such polynomial f(x) with tr f(A) = n is unique. Thus, generalizing the well-known definition of the Hoffman polynomial of a strongly connected regular digraph, for any irreducible nonnegative n × n matrix A, we are led to define its Hoffman polynomial to be the polynomial f(x) of minimum degree satisfying that f(A) is positive and has rank 1 and trace n. The Hoffman polynomial of a strongly connected digraph is defined to be the Hoffman polynomial of its adjacency matrix. We collect in this paper some basic results and open problems related to the concept of Hoffman polynomials.     

Some lower bounds for the spectral radius of matrices using traces

Let A be an n×n matrix with eigenvalues λ₁,λ₂,…,λ_n, and let m be an integer satisfying rank(A)?m?n. If A is real, the best possible lower bound for its spectral radius in terms of m, trA and trA² is obtained. If A is any complex matrix, two lower bounds for are compared, and furthermore a new lower bound for the spectral radius is given only in terms of trA,trA²,‖A‖,‖A^∗A-AA^∗‖,n and m.     

Representation of tripotents and representations via tripotents

Let A be an algebra. An element A∈A is called tripotent if A³=A. We study the questions: if both A and B are tripotents, then: Under what conditions are A+B and AB tripotent? Under what conditions do A and B commute? We extend the partial order from the Hilbert space idempotents to the set of all tripotents and show that every normal tripotent is self-adjoint. For A=M_n(C) we describe the set of all finite sums of tripotents, the convex hull of tripotents and the set of all tripotents averages. We also give the new proof of rational trace matrix representations by Choi and Wu [2].     

The eigenvalue distribution on Schur complements of H-matrices

The paper studies the eigenvalue distribution of some special matrices. Tong in Theorem 1.2 of [Wen-ting Tong, On the distribution of eigenvalues of some matrices, Acta Math. Sinica (China), 20 (4) (1977) 273-275] gives conditions for an n × n matrix A ∈ SD_n ∪ ID_n to have |J_R+(A)| eigenvalues with positive real part, and |J_R-(A)| eigenvalues with negative real part. A counter-example is given in this paper to show that the conditions of the theorem are not true. A corrected condition is then proposed under which the conclusion of the theorem holds. Then the corrected condition is applied to establish some results about the eigenvalue distribution of the Schur complements of H-matrices with complex diagonal entries. Several conditions on the n × n matrix A and the subset α ⊆ N = {1, 2, … , n} are presented such that the Schur complement matrix A/α of the matrix A has eigenvalues with positive real part and eigenvalues with negative real part.     

Congruence of Hermitian matrices by Hermitian matrices

Two Hermitian matrices A,B∈M_n(C) are said to be Hermitian-congruent if there exists a nonsingular Hermitian matrix C∈M_n(C) such that B=CAC. In this paper, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for two nonsingular simultaneously unitarily diagonalizable Hermitian matrices A and B to be Hermitian-congruent. Moreover, when A and B are Hermitian-congruent, we describe the possible inertias of the Hermitian matrices C that carry the congruence. We also give necessary and sufficient conditions for any 2-by-2 nonsingular Hermitian matrices to be Hermitian-congruent. In both of the studied cases, we show that if A and B are real and Hermitian-congruent, then they are congruent by a real symmetric matrix. Finally we note that if A and B are 2-by-2 nonsingular real symmetric matrices having the same sign pattern, then there is always a real symmetric matrix C satisfying B=CAC. Moreover, if both matrices are positive, then C can be picked with arbitrary inertia.     

Inequalities between ∥f(A + B)∥ and ∥f(A) + f(B)∥

The conjecture posed by Aujla and Silva [J.S. Aujla, F.C. Silva, Weak majorization inequalities and convex functions, Linear Algebra Appl. 369 (2003) 217-233] is proved. It is shown that for any m-tuple of positive-semidefinite n × n complex matrices A_j and for any non-negative convex function f on [0, ∞) with f(0) = 0 the inequality ?f(A₁) + f(A₂) + ? + f(A_m)? ? ? f(A₁ + A₂ + ? + A_m)? holds for any unitarily invariant norm ? · ?. It is also proved that ?f(A₁) + f(A₂) + ? + f(A_m)? ? f(?A₁ + A₂ + ? + A_m?), where f is a non-negative concave function on [0, ∞) and ? · ? is normalized.     

On extremal matrices of second largest exponent by Boolean rank

Let b = b(A) be the Boolean rank of an n × n primitive Boolean matrix A and exp(A) be the exponent of A. Then exp(A) ? (b − 1)² + 2, and the matrices for which equality occurs have been determined in [D.A. Gregory, S.J. Kirkland, N.J. Pullman, A bound on the exponent of a primitive matrix using Boolean rank, Linear Algebra Appl. 217 (1995) 101-116]. In this paper, we show that for each 3 ? b ? n − 1, there are n × n primitive Boolean matrices A with b(A) = b such that exp(A) = (b − 1)² + 1, and we explicitly describe all such matrices.     

Factoring matrices with a tree-structured sparsity pattern

Let A be a matrix whose sparsity pattern is a tree with maximal degree d_max. We show that if the columns of A are ordered using minimum degree on |A|+|A|^∗, then factoring A using a sparse LU with partial pivoting algorithm generates only O(d_maxn) fill, requires only O(d_maxn) operations, and is much more stable than LU with partial pivoting on a general matrix. We also propose an even more efficient and just-as-stable algorithm called sibling-dominant pivoting. This algorithm is a strict partial pivoting algorithm that modifies the column preordering locally to minimize fill and work. It leads to only O(n) work and fill. More conventional column pre-ordering methods that are based (usually implicitly) on the sparsity pattern of |A|^∗|A| are not as efficient as the approaches that we propose in this paper.     

A system of real quaternion matrix equations with applications

Let H be the real quaternion algebra and H^n×m denote the set of all n×m matrices over H. Let P∈H^n×n and Q∈H^m×m be involutions, i.e., P²=I,Q²=I. A matrix A∈H^n×m is said to be (P,Q)-symmetric if A=PAQ. This paper studies the system of linear real quaternion matrix equations

     

The Whitney embedding theorem for tropical torsion modules: Classification of tropical modules

We prove here a tropical version of the well-known Whitney embedding theorem [32] stating that a smooth connected m-dimensional compact differential manifold can be embedded into R^2m+1.The tropical version of this theorem states that a tropical torsion module with m generators can always be embedded into the free tropical module , where p (equals to 2 for m=2, and otherwise) is the number of rows supporting the torsion, when the generators are given by the (independent) columns of a matrix of size n×m.As a corollary, we get that tropical m-dimensional torsion modules are classified by a (m-1)(m(m-1)-1)-parameter family.     

Topological classification of affine operators on unitary and Euclidean spaces

We study affine operators on a unitary or Euclidean space U up to topological conjugacy. An affine operator is a map f:U→U of the form f(x)=Ax+b, in which A:U→U is a linear operator and b∈U. Two affine operators f and g are said to be topologically conjugate if g=h^-1fh for some homeomorphism h:U→U.If an affine operator f(x)=Ax+b has a fixed point, then f is topologically conjugate to its linear part A. The problem of classifying linear operators up to topological conjugacy was studied by Kuiper and Robbin [Topological classification of linear endomorphisms, Invent. Math. 19 (2) (1973) 83-106] and other authors.Let f:U→U be an affine operator without fixed point. We prove that f is topologically conjugate to an affine operator g:U→U such that U is an orthogonal direct sum of g-invariant subspaces V and W,

•

the restriction g∣V of g to V is an affine operator that in some orthonormal basis of V has the form

(x₁,x₂,…,x_n)?(x₁+1,x₂,…,x_n-1,εx_n)     

On a matrix decomposition of Hartwig and Spindelböck

The main task of the paper is to demonstrate that Corollary 6 in [R.E. Hartwig, K. Spindelböck, Matrices for which A^∗ and A^† commute, Linear and Multilinear Algebra 14 (1984) 241-256] provides a powerful tool to investigate square matrices with complex entries. This aim is achieved, on the one hand, by obtaining several original results involving square matrices, and, on the other hand, by reestablishing some of the facts already known in the literature, often in extended and/or generalized forms. The particular attention is paid to the usefulness of the aforementioned corollary to characterize various classes of matrices and to explore matrix partial orderings.