An extremal sparsity property of the Jordan canonical form

We prove that among all the matrices that are similar to a given square complex matrix, the Jordan canonical form has the largest number of off-diagonal zero entries. We also characterize those matrices that attain this largest number.     

Canonical forms for unitary congruence and *congruence

We use methods of the general theory of congruence and *congruence for complex matrices – regularization and cosquares – to determine a unitary congruence canonical form (respectively, a unitary *congruence canonical form) for complex matrices A such that āA (respectively, A ²) is normal. As special cases of our canonical forms, we obtain – in a coherent and systematic way – known canonical forms for conjugate normal, congruence normal, coninvolutory, involutory, projection, λ-projection, and unitary matrices. But we also obtain canonical forms for matrices whose squares are Hermitian or normal, and other cases that do not seem to have been investigated previously. We show that the classification problems under (a) unitary *congruence when A ³ is normal, and (b) unitary congruence when AāA is normal, are both unitarily wild, so these classification problems are hopeless.     

Some observations on the Youla form and conjugate-normal matrices

Two square complex matrices A, B are said to be unitarily congruent if there is a unitary matrix U such that A = UBU^T. The Youla form is a canonical form under unitary congruence. We give a simple derivation of this form using coninvariant subspaces. For the special class of conjugate-normal matrices the associated Youla form is discussed.     

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.     

Canonical form of m-by-2-by-2 matrices over a field of characteristic other than two

We give a canonical form of m × 2 × 2 matrices for equivalence over any field of characteristic not two.     

Unitarily achievable zero patterns and traces of words in A and A

Our primary objective is to identify a natural and substantial problem about unitary similarity on arbitrary complex matrices: which 0-patterns may be achieved for any given n-by-n complex matrix via some unitary similarity of it. To this end, certain restrictions on “achievable” 0-patterns are mentioned, both positional and, more important, on the maximum number of achievable 0’s. Prior results fitting this general question are mentioned, as well as the “first” unresolved pattern (for 3-by-3 matrices!). In the process a recent question is answered.A closely related additional objective is to mention the best known bound for the maximum length of words necessary for the application of Specht’s theorem about which pairs of complex matrices are unitarily similar, which seems not widely known to matrix theorists. In the process, we mention the number of words necessary for small size matrices.     

A real-valued block conjugate gradient type method for solving complex symmetric linear systems with multiple right-hand sides

We consider solving complex symmetric linear systems with multiple right-hand sides. We assume that the coefficient matrix has indefinite real part and positive definite imaginary part. We propose a new block conjugate gradient type method based on the Schur complement of a certain 2-by-2 real block form. The algorithm of the proposed method consists of building blocks that involve only real arithmetic with real symmetric matrices of the original size. We also present the convergence property of the proposed method and an efficient algorithmic implementation. In numerical experiments, we compare our method to a complex-valued direct solver, and a preconditioned and nonpreconditioned block Krylov method that uses complex arithmetic.     

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.     

On approximately simultaneously diagonalizable matrices

A collection A₁, A₂, …, A_k of n × n matrices over the complex numbers C has the ASD property if the matrices can be perturbed by an arbitrarily small amount so that they become simultaneously diagonalizable. Such a collection must perforce be commuting. We show by a direct matrix proof that the ASD property holds for three commuting matrices when one of them is 2-regular (dimension of eigenspaces is at most 2). Corollaries include results of Gerstenhaber and Neubauer-Sethuraman on bounds for the dimension of the algebra generated by A₁, A₂, …, A_k. Even when the ASD property fails, our techniques can produce a good bound on the dimension of this subalgebra. For example, we establish for commuting matrices A₁, …, A_k when one of them is 2-regular. This bound is sharp. One offshoot of our work is the introduction of a new canonical form, the H-form, for matrices over an algebraically closed field. The H-form of a matrix is a sparse “Jordan like” upper triangular matrix which allows us to assume that any commuting matrices are also upper triangular. (The Jordan form itself does not accommodate this.)     

Characterizations of EP matrices and weighted-EP matrices

A square complex matrix A is said to be EP if A and its conjugate transpose A^∗ have the same range. In this paper, we first collect a group of known characterizations of EP matrix, and give some new characterizations of EP matrices. Then, we define weighted-EP matrix, and present a wealth of characterizations for weighted-EP matrix through various rank formulas for matrices and their generalized inverses.     

Matrices which commute with doubly stochastic matrices

The set doubly stochastic matrices which commute with the doubly stochastic matrices of any particular given rank is determined.     

Multiple LU factorizations of a singular matrix

A singular matrix A may have more than one LU factorizations. In this work the set of all LU factorizations of A is explicitly described when the lower triangular matrix L is nonsingular. To this purpose, a canonical form of A under left multiplication by unit lower triangular matrices is introduced. This canonical form allows us to characterize the matrices that have an LU factorization and to parametrize all possible LU factorizations. Formulae in terms of quotient of minors of A are presented for the entries of this canonical form.     

The class of m-EP and m-normal matrices

The well-known classes of EP matrices and normal matrices are defined by the matrices that commute with their Moore–Penrose inverse and with their conjugate transpose, respectively. This paper investigates the class of m-EP matrices and m-normal matrices that provide a generalization of EP matrices and normal matrices, respectively, and analyses both of them for their properties and characterizations.     

Matrices which commute with doubly stochastic matrices

The set doubly stochastic matrices which commute with the doubly stochastic matrices of any particular given rank is determined.     

A canonical form for nonderogatory matrices under unitary similarity

A square matrix is nonderogatory if its Jordan blocks have distinct eigenvalues. We give canonical forms for

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nonderogatory complex matrices up to unitary similarity, and

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pairs of complex matrices up to similarity, in which one matrix has distinct eigenvalues.

The types of these canonical forms are given by undirected and, respectively, directed graphs with no undirected cycles.     

Pairs of mutually annihilating operators

Pairs (A,B) of mutually annihilating operators AB=BA=0 on a finite dimensional vector space over an algebraically closed field were classified by Gelfand and Ponomarev [Russian Math. Surveys 23 (1968) 1-58] by method of linear relations. The classification of (A,B) over any field was derived by Nazarova, Roiter, Sergeichuk, and Bondarenko [J. Soviet Math. 3 (1975) 636-654] from the classification of finitely generated modules over a dyad of two local Dedekind rings. We give canonical matrices of (A,B) over any field in an explicit form and our proof is constructive: the matrices of (A,B) are sequentially reduced to their canonical form by similarity transformations (A,B)?(S^-1AS,S^-1BS).     

A matrix problem over a central quadratic skew field extension

Let F⊂G=F(u) be a central quadratic skew field extension (such that the generator u is central in G) and a natural (G,G)-bimodule. We deal with the matrix problem on finding a canonical form for rectangular matrices over W with help of left elementary transformations of their rows and right elementary transformations of columns over G. We solve this problem reducing it in the separable (resp. inseparable) case to the semilinear (resp. pseudolinear) pencil problem.     

On some properties of the determinants of tensors

We use the Hilbert?s Nullstellensatz (Hilbert?s Zero Point Theorem) to give a direct proof of the formula for the determinants of the products of tensors. By using this determinant formula and using tensor product to represent the transformations of the slices of tensors, we prove some basic properties of the determinants of tensors which are the generalizations of the corresponding properties of the determinants for matrices. We also study the determinants of tensors after two types of transposes. We use the permutational similarity of tensors to discuss the relation between weakly reducible tensors and the triangular block tensors, and give a canonical form of the weakly reducible tensors.     

Determinant and Pfaffian of sum of skew symmetric matrices

We completely describe the determinants of the sum of orbits of two real skew symmetric matrices, under similarity action of orthogonal group and the special orthogonal group respectively. We also study the Pfaffian case and the complex case.     

Remarks on Lipschitz properties of matrix groups actions

It is proved that a large class of matrix group actions, including joint similarity and congruence-like actions, as well as actions of the type of matrix equivalence, have local Lipschitz property. Under additional hypotheses, global Lipschitz property is proved. These results are specialized and applied to obtain local Lipschitz property of canonical bases of matrices that are selfadjoint in an indefinite inner product. Real, complex, and quaternionic matrices are considered.