Kapranov rank vs. tropical rank

We show that determining Kapranov rank of tropical matrices is not only NP-hard over any infinite field, but if solving Diophantine equations over the rational numbers is undecidable, then determining Kapranov rank over the rational numbers is also undecidable. We prove that Kapranov rank of tropical matrices is not bounded in terms of tropical rank, answering a question of Develin, Santos, and Sturmfels.

     

Inequalities for Gondran-Minoux rank and idempotent semirings

The rank-sum, rank-product, and rank-union inequalities for Gondran-Minoux rank of matrices over idempotent semirings are considered. We prove these inequalities for matrices over quasi-selective semirings without zero divisors, which include matrices over the max-plus semiring. Moreover, it is shown that the inequalities provide the linear algebraic characterization for the class of quasi-selective semirings. Namely, it is proven that the inequalities hold for matrices over an idempotent semiring S without zero divisors if and only if S is quasi-selective. For any idempotent semiring which is not quasi-selective it is shown that the rank-sum, rank-product, and rank-union inequalities do not hold in general. Also, we provide an example of a selective semiring with zero divisors such that the rank-sum, rank-product, and rank-union inequalities do not hold in general.     

An upper bound for the minimum rank of a graph

For a graph G of order n, the minimum rank of G is defined to be the smallest possible rank over all real symmetric n×n matrices A whose (i,j)th entry (for i≠j) is nonzero whenever {i,j} is an edge in G and is zero otherwise. We prove an upper bound for minimum rank in terms of minimum degree of a vertex is valid for many graphs, including all bipartite graphs, and conjecture this bound is true over for all graphs, and prove a related bound for all zero-nonzero patterns of (not necessarily symmetric) matrices. Most of the results are valid for matrices over any infinite field, but need not be true for matrices over finite fields.     

The maximum dimension of a subspace of nilpotent matrices of index 2

A matrix M is nilpotent of index 2 if M²=0. Let V be a space of nilpotent n×n matrices of index 2 over a field k where and suppose that r is the maximum rank of any matrix in V. The object of this paper is to give an elementary proof of the fact that . We show that the inequality is sharp and construct all such subspaces of maximum dimension. We use the result to find the maximum dimension of spaces of anti-commuting matrices and zero subalgebras of special Jordan Algebras.     

Tournament matrices and their generalizations,I.

If M is any complex matrix with rank (M + M ^* + I) = 1, we show that any eigenvalue of M that is not geometrically simple has 1/2 for its real part. This generalizes a recent finding of de Caen and Hoffman: the rank of any n × n tournament matrix is at least n ? 1. We extend several spectral properties of tournament matrices to this and related types of matrices. For example, we characterize the singular real matrices M with 0 diagonal for which rank (M + M^T + I) = 1 and we characterize the vectors that can be in the kernels of such matrices. We show that singular, irreducible n × n tournament matrices exist if and only n? {2,3,4,5} and exhibit many infinite families of such matrices. Connections with signed digraphs are explored and several open problems are presented.     

Rang des matrices Hermitiennes semi-définies positives indéfiniment divisibles

In this paper we study n × n Hermitian semidefinite positive matrices which are infinitely divisible in a sense that we define in Sec. 1. We establish (Theorem 2.2) a stability property for the rank of the “Hadamard power matrices” of such a matrix.     

Tropical matrix groups

We study the structure of groups of finitary tropical matrices under multiplication. We show that the maximal groups of \(n \times n\) tropical matrices are precisely the groups of the form \(G \times \mathbb {R}\) where G is a group admitting a 2-closed permutation representation on n points. Each such maximal group is also naturally isomorphic to the full linear automorphism group of a related tropical polytope. Our results have numerous corollaries, including the fact that every automorphism of a projective (as a module) tropical polytope of full rank extends to an automorphism of the containing space.     

Preservers of pairs of bivectors with bounded distance

We extend Liu’s fundamental theorem of the geometry of alternate matrices to the second exterior power of an infinite dimensional vector space and also use her theorem to characterize surjective mappings T from the vector space V of all n×n alternate matrices over a field with at least three elements onto itself such that for any pair A, B in V, rank(A-B)?2k if and only if rank(T(A)-T(B))?2k, where k is a fixed positive integer such that n?2k+2 and k?2.     

2-Adic valuations of certain ratios of products of factorials and applications

We prove the conjecture of Falikman-Friedland-Loewy on the parity of the degrees of projective varieties of n×n complex symmetric matrices of rank at most k. We also characterize the parity of the degrees of projective varieties of n×n complex skew symmetric matrices of rank at most 2p. We give recursive relations which determine the parity of the degrees of projective varieties of m×n complex matrices of rank at most k. In the case the degrees of these varieties are odd, we characterize the minimal dimensions of subspaces of n×n skew symmetric real matrices and of m×n real matrices containing a nonzero matrix of rank at most k. The parity questions studied here are also of combinatorial interest since they concern the parity of the number of plane partitions contained in a given box, on the one hand, and the parity of the number of symplectic tableaux of rectangular shape, on the other hand.     

A note on universally optimal matrices and field independence of the minimum rank of a graph

For a simple graph G on n vertices, the minimum rank of G over a field F, written as mr^F(G), is defined to be the smallest possible rank among all n×n symmetric matrices over F whose (i,j)th entry (for i≠j) is nonzero whenever {i,j} is an edge in G and is zero otherwise. A symmetric integer matrix A such that every off-diagonal entry is 0, 1, or -1 is called a universally optimal matrix if, for all fields F, the rank of A over F is the minimum rank of the graph of A over F. Recently, Dealba et al. [L.M. Dealba, J. Grout, L. Hogben, R. Mikkelson, K. Rasmussen, Universally optimal matrices and field independence of the minimum rank of a graph, Electron. J. Linear Algebra 18 (2009) 403-419] initiated the study of universally optimal matrices and established field independence or dependence of minimum rank for some families of graphs. In the present paper, more results on universally optimal matrices and field independence or dependence of the minimum rank of a graph are presented, and some results of Dealba et al. [5] are improved.     

Generalized inverses of matrices over fields of characteristic two

For F a field of characteristic two, the problem of determining which m×n matrices of rank r have normalized generalized inverses and which have pseudoinverses is solved. For F_q a finite field of characteristic two, both the number of m×n matrices of rank r over F which have normalized generalized inverses and the number of m×n matrices of rank r over F_q which have pseudoinverses are determined.     

Subspaces of matrices with special rank properties

Let K be a field and let M_m×n(K) denote the space of m×n matrices over K. We investigate properties of a subspace M of M_m×n(K) of dimension n(m-r+1) in which each non-zero element of M has rank at least r and enumerate the number of elements of a given rank in M when K is finite. We also provide an upper bound for the dimension of a constant rank r subspace of M_m×n(K) when K is finite and give non-trivial examples to show that our bound is optimal in some cases. We include a similar a bound for the maximum dimension of a constant rank subspace of skew-symmetric matrices over a finite field.     

On the optimal computation of a set of symmetric and persymmetric bilinear forms

A special class $\text{T}$ⁿ of n×n matrices is described, which has tensor rank n over the real field. A tensor base for general symmetric, persymmetric, both symmetric and persymmetric matrices and Toeplitz symmetric matrices can be defined in terms of the tensor bases of $\text{T}$^l for some different values of l. It is proved that both symmetric and persymmetric n×n matrices and Toeplitz symmetric n×n matrices have tensor rank $\text{[}\text{(n+1)}{}^2\text{4}\text{]}$ and 2n?2, respectively, in the real field.     

On the matrices of given rank in a large subspace

Let V be a linear subspace of M_n,p(K) with codimension lesser than n, where K is an arbitrary field and n?p. In a recent work of the author, it was proven that V is always spanned by its rank p matrices unless n=p=2 and K?F₂. Here, we give a sufficient condition on codim V for V to be spanned by its rank r matrices for a given r∈?1,p-1?. This involves a generalization of the Gerstenhaber theorem on linear subspaces of nilpotent matrices.     

Exact Matrix Completion via Convex Optimization

We consider a problem of considerable practical interest: the recovery of a data matrix from a sampling of its entries. Suppose that we observe m entries selected uniformly at random from a matrix M. Can we complete the matrix and recover the entries that we have not seen? We show that one can perfectly recover most low-rank matrices from what appears to be an incomplete set of entries. We prove that if the number m of sampled entries obeys $m\ge C\,n^{1.2}r\log n$ for some positive numerical constant C, then with very high probability, most n×n matrices of rank r can be perfectly recovered by solving a simple convex optimization program. This program finds the matrix with minimum nuclear norm that fits the data. The condition above assumes that the rank is not too large. However, if one replaces the 1.2 exponent with 1.25, then the result holds for all values of the rank. Similar results hold for arbitrary rectangular matrices as well. Our results are connected with the recent literature on compressed sensing, and show that objects other than signals and images can be perfectly reconstructed from very limited information.     

Characteristic-independence of Betti numbers of graph ideals

In this paper, we study the Betti numbers of Stanley-Reisner ideals generated in degree 2. We show that the first 6 Betti numbers do not depend on the characteristic of the ground field. We also show that, if the number of variables n is at most 10, all Betti numbers are independent of the ground field. For n=11, there exists precisely 4 examples in which the Betti numbers depend on the ground field. This is equivalent to the statement that the homology of flag complexes with at most 10 vertices is torsion free and that there exists precisely 4 non-isomorphic flag complexes with 11 vertices whose homology has torsion.In each of the 4 examples mentioned above the 8th Betti numbers depend on the ground field and so we conclude that the highest Betti number which is always independent of the ground field is either 6 or 7; if the former is true then we show that there must exist a graph with 12 vertices whose 7th Betti number depends on the ground field.     

Heuristics for exact nonnegative matrix factorization

The exact nonnegative matrix factorization (exact NMF) problem is the following: given an m-by-n nonnegative matrix X and a factorization rank r, find, if possible, an m-by-r nonnegative matrix W and an r-by-n nonnegative matrix H such that \(X = WH\). In this paper, we propose two heuristics for exact NMF, one inspired from simulated annealing and the other from the greedy randomized adaptive search procedure. We show empirically that these two heuristics are able to compute exact nonnegative factorizations for several classes of nonnegative matrices (namely, linear Euclidean distance matrices, slack matrices, unique-disjointness matrices, and randomly generated matrices) and as such demonstrate their superiority over standard multi-start strategies. We also consider a hybridization between these two heuristics that allows us to combine the advantages of both methods. Finally, we discuss the use of these heuristics to gain insight on the behavior of the nonnegative rank, i.e., the minimum factorization rank such that an exact NMF exists. In particular, we disprove a conjecture on the nonnegative rank of a Kronecker product, propose a new upper bound on the extension complexity of generic n-gons and conjecture the exact value of (i) the extension complexity of regular n-gons and (ii) the nonnegative rank of a submatrix of the slack matrix of the correlation polytope.     

On tropical matrices of small factor rank

The notion of the factor rank of tropical matrices is considered. We construct a linear-time algorithm that either finds a full-rank 3 × 3 submatrix of a given matrix A or concludes that the factor rank of A is less than 3. We show that there exist matrices of factor rank 4 whose 4 × 4 submatrices are all rank deficient.