On the numerical characterization of the reachability cone for an essentially nonnegative matrix

Given an n×n real matrix A with nonnegative off-diagonal entries, the solution to , x₀=x(0), t?0 is x(t)=e^tAx₀. The problem of identifying the initial points x₀ for which x(t) becomes and remains entrywise nonnegative is considered. It is known that such x₀ are exactly those vectors for which the iterates x^(k)=(I+hA)^kx₀ become and remain nonnegative, where h is a positive, not necessarily small parameter that depends on the diagonal entries of A. In this paper, this characterization of initial points is extended to a numerical test when A is irreducible: if x^(k) becomes and remains positive, then so does x(t); if x(t) fails to become and remain positive, then either x^(k) becomes and remains negative or it always has a negative and a positive entry. Due to round-off errors, the latter case manifests itself numerically by x^(k) converging with a relatively small convergence ratio to a positive or a negative vector. An algorithm implementing this test is provided, along with its numerical analysis and examples. The reducible case is also discussed and a similar test is described.