On the S-matrix conjecture

Motivated with a problem in spectroscopy, Sloane and Harwit conjectured in 1976 what is the minimal Frobenius norm of the inverse of a matrix having all entries from the interval [0,1]$[0,1]$. In 1987, Cheng proved their conjecture in the case of odd dimensions, while for even dimensions he obtained a slightly weaker lower bound for the norm. His proof is based on the Kiefer–Wolfowitz equivalence theorem from the approximate theory of optimal design. In this note we give a short and simple proof of his result.     

Matrix pencils completion problems

In this paper we give a partial solution to the challenge problem posed by Loiseau et al. in [J. Loiseau, S. Mondié, I. Zaballa, P. Zagalak, Assigning the Kronecker invariants of a matrix pencil by row or column completion, Linear Algebra Appl. 278 (1998) 327-336], i.e. we assign the Kronecker invariants of a matrix pencil obtained by row or column completion. We have solved this problem over arbitrary fields.     

Equivalence constants for certain matrix norms II

We give an almost complete solution of a problem posed by Klaus and Li [A.-L. Klaus, C.-K. Li, Isometries for the vector (p, q) norm and the induced (p, q) norm, Linear and Multilinear Algebra 38 (1995) 315–332]. Klaus and Li’s problem, which arose during their investigations of isometries, was to relate the Frobenius (or Hilbert–Schmidt) norm of a matrix to various operator norms of that matrix. Our methods are based on earlier work of Feng [B.Q. Feng, Equivalence constants for certain matrix norms, Linear Algebra Appl. 374 (2003) 247–253] and Tonge [A. Tonge, Equivalence constants for matrix norms: a problem of Goldberg, Linear Algebra Appl. 306 (2000) 1–13], but introduce as a new ingredient some techniques developed by Hardy and Littlewood [G.H. Hardy, J.E. Littlewood, Bilinear forms bounded in space [p, q], Quart. J. Math. (Oxford) 5 (1934) 241–254].     

On nonsingularity of block two-by-two matrices

We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for guaranteeing the nonsingularity of a block two-by-two matrix by making use of the singular value decompositions and the Moore–Penrose pseudoinverses of the matrix blocks. These conditions are complete, and much weaker and simpler than those given by Decker and Keller [D.W. Decker, H.B. Keller, Multiple limit point bifurcation, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 75 (1980) 417–430], and may be more easily examined than those given by Bai [Z.-Z. Bai, Eigenvalue estimates for saddle point matrices of Hermitian and indefinite leading blocks, J. Comput. Appl. Math. 237 (2013) 295–306] from the computational viewpoint. We also derive general formulas for the rank of the block two-by-two matrix by utilizing either the unitarily compressed or the orthogonally projected sub-matrices.     

Closest normal matrix finally found!

A method of finding the closest normal matrix in the Frobenius matrix norm is developed. It is shown that if a matrix is represented in those coordinates where its closest normal matrix is diagonal, its restriction to any pair of coordinate directions is a multiple of a real diagonal and skew nondiagonal 2×2 matrix. A convergent algorithm to bring an arbitrary matrix into that form is described and results of numerical tests are reported.Dedicated to the memory of Peter Henrici (1923–1987).     

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.     

Remarks on the sharp partial order and the ordering of squares of matrices

In this note we revisit the sharp partial order introduced by Mitra [S.K. Mitra, On group inverses and the sharp order, Linear Algebra Appl. 92 (1987) 17-37]. We recall some already known facts from certain matrix decompositions and derive new statements, relating our discussion to recent results in the literature concerned with partial orders between matrices and their squares.     

A fast algorithm for the recursive calculation of dominant singular subspaces

In many engineering applications it is required to compute the dominant subspace of a matrix A   of dimension m×n$m\times n$, with m?n$m?n$. Often the matrix A is produced incrementally, so all the columns are not available simultaneously. This problem arises, e.g., in image processing, where each column of the matrix A represents an image of a given sequence leading to a singular value decomposition-based compression [S. Chandrasekaran, B.S. Manjunath, Y.F. Wang, J. Winkeler, H. Zhang, An eigenspace update algorithm for image analysis, Graphical Models and Image Process. 59 (5) (1997) 321–332]. Furthermore, the so-called proper orthogonal decomposition approximation uses the left dominant subspace of a matrix A where a column consists of a time instance of the solution of an evolution equation, e.g., the flow field from a fluid dynamics simulation. Since these flow fields tend to be very large, only a small number can be stored efficiently during the simulation, and therefore an incremental approach is useful [P. Van Dooren, Gramian based model reduction of large-scale dynamical systems, in: Numerical Analysis 1999, Chapman & Hall, CRC Press, London, Boca Raton, FL, 2000, pp. 231–247].     

Matrices with prescribed Ritz values

On the way to establishing a commutative analog to the Gelfand-Kirillov theorem in Lie theory, Kostant and Wallach produced a decomposition of M(n) which we will describe in the language of linear algebra. The “Ritz values” of a matrix are the eigenvalues of its leading principal submatrices of order m=1,2,…,n. There is a unique unit upper Hessenberg matrix H with those eigenvalues. For real symmetric matrices with interlacing Ritz values, we extend their analysis to allow eigenvalues at successive levels to be equal. We also decide whether given Ritz values can come from a tridiagonal matrix.     

Factorization of singular integer matrices

It is well known that a singular integer matrix can be factorized into a product of integer idempotent matrices. In this paper, we prove that every n  × n (n > 2) singular integer matrix can be written as a product of 3n + 1 integer idempotent matrices. This theorem has some application in the field of synthesizing VLSI arrays and systolic arrays.     

The Density Problem for Self–Commutators of Unbounded Bergman Operators

We give two sufficient conditions for the self–commutator of an unbounded Bergman operator to be densely defined. In conjunction with known results this leads to a strong Berger–Shaw type theorem for unbounded Bergman operators. Finally we present results regarding the density problem for unbounded sets in the plane of infinite area.     

Singularity, Wielandt’s lemma and singular values

In this study, some upper and lower bounds for singular values of a general complex matrix are investigated, according to singularity and Wielandt’s lemma of matrices. Especially, some relationships between the singular values of the matrix A and its block norm matrix are established. Based on these relationships, one may obtain the effective estimates for the singular values of large matrices by using the lower dimension norm matrices. In addition, a small error in Piazza (2002) [G. Piazza, T. Politi, An upper bound for the condition number of a matrix in spectral norm, J. Comput. Appl. Math. 143 (1) (2002) 141-144] is also corrected. Some numerical experiments on saddle point problems show that these results are simple and sharp under suitable conditions.     

Relations between the Clausen and Kazhdan-Lusztig representations of the symmetric group

We use Kazhdan-Lusztig polynomials and subspaces of the polynomial ring C[x_1,1,…,x_n,n] to give a new construction of the Kazhdan-Lusztig representations of S_n. This construction produces exactly the same modules as those which Clausen constructed using a different basis in [M. Clausen, Multivariate polynomials, standard tableaux, and representations of symmetric groups, J. Symbolic Comput. (11), 5-6 (1991) 483-522. Invariant-theoretic algorithms in geometry (Minneapolis, MN, 1987)], and does not employ the Kazhdan-Lusztig preorders. We show that the two resulting matrix representations are related by a unitriangular transition matrix. This provides a C[x_1,1,…,x_n,n]-analog of results due to Garsia and McLarnan, and McDonough and Pallikaros, who related the Kazhdan-Lusztig representations to Young’s natural representations.     

Computing the norm ∥A∥∞,1 is NP-hard

It is proved that computing the subordinate matrix norm ∥A∥∞1 is NP-hard, Even more, existence of a polynomial-time algorithm for computing this norm with relative accuracy less than 1/(4n²), where n is matrix size, implies P = NP.     

Characterization of ray pattern matrix whose determinantal region has two components after deleting the origin

Ray nonsingular matrices are generalizations of sign nonsingular matrices. The problem of characterizing ray nonsingular matrices is still open. The study of the determinantal regions R_A of ray pattern matrices is closely related to the study of ray nonsingular matrices. It was proved that if R_A?{0} is disconnected, then it is a union of two opposite open sectors (or open rays). In this paper, we characterize those ray patterns whose determinantal regions become disconnected after deleting the origin. The characterization is based on three classes (F1), (F2) and (F3) of matrices, which can further be characterized in terms of the sets of the distinct signed transversal products of their ray patterns. Moreover, we show that in the fully indecomposable case, a matrix A is in the class (F1) (or (F2), respectively) if and only if A is ray permutation equivalent to a real SNS (or non-SNS, respectively) matrix.     

The minimal polynomial of a matrix

Let Rbe a finite dimensional central simple algebra over a field FA be any n× n matrix over R. By using the method of matrix representation, this paper obtains the structure formula of the minimal polynomial q_A(λ) of A over F. By using q_A(λ), this paper discusses the structure of right (left) eigenvalues set of A, and obtains the necessary and sufficient condition that a matrix over a finite dimensional central division algebra is similar to a diagonal matrix.     

The positive definite completion problem revisited

In [R. Grone, C.R. Johnson, E. Sa, H. Wolkowicz, Positive definite completions of partial Hermitian matrices, Linear Algebra Appl. 58 (1984) 109-124] the positive definite (semi-) completion problem in which the underlying graph is chordal was solved. For the positive definite case, the process was constructive and the completion was obtained by completing the partial matrix an entry at a time. For the positive semidefinite case, they obtained completions of a particular sequence of partial positive definite matrices with the same underlying graph and noted that there is a convergent subsequence of these completions that converges to the desired completion. Here, in the chordal case, we provide a constructive solution, based entirely on matrix/graph theoretic methods, to the positive (semi-)definite completion problem. Our solution associates a specific tree (called the “clique tree” [C.R. Johnson, M. Lundquist, Matrices with chordal inverse zero-patterns, Linear and Multilinear Algebra 36 (1993) 1-17]) with the (chordal) graph of the given partial positive (semi-)definite matrix. This tree structure allows us to complete the matrix a “block at a time” as opposed to an “entry at a time” (as in Grone et al. (1984) for the positive definite case). In Grone et al. (1984), using complex analytic techniques, the completion for the positive definite case was shown to be the unique determinant maximizing completion and was shown to be the unique completion that has zeros in its inverse in the positions corresponding to the unspecified entries of the partial matrix. Here, we show the same using only matrix/graph theoretic tools.     

Equivalent conditions for noncentral generalized Laplacianness and independence of matrix quadratic forms

Let Y be an n×p multivariate normal random matrix with general covariance Σ_Y and W be a symmetric matrix. In the present article, the property that a matrix quadratic form Y^′WY is distributed as a difference of two independent (noncentral) Wishart random matrices is called the (noncentral) generalized Laplacianness (GL). Then a set of algebraic results are obtained which will give the necessary and sufficient conditions for the (noncentral) GL of a matrix quadratic form. Further, two extensions of Cochran’s theorem concerning the (noncentral) GL and independence of a family of matrix quadratic forms are developed.