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Given a non-invertible, diagonalizable matrix $A$, I wish to transform it into another matrix $B$ that satisfies:

  • $B$ is invertible
  • all non-zero eigenvalues of $A$, are also eigenvalues of $B$
  • all of the eigenvectors correspond to non-zero eigenvalues of $A$, are also eigenvectors that correspond to the same eigenvalues of $B$

There are no other constraints on $B$.

What is the simplest way to calculate such a matrix $B$? (of course, there are infinitely many such matrices, but I want an easy way to calculate some such a matrix $B$).

Thanks in advance!

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    $\begingroup$ Add the projector onto $\mathop{\rm Ker} A$ along $\mathop{\rm Im} A$... $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 1, 2016 at 18:58
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    $\begingroup$ Let $f(T)$ be the characteristic polynomial of $A$ with all the factors of $T$ divided out, and take $B=A+f(A)$. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 1, 2016 at 19:35
  • $\begingroup$ Ilya: the matrix $A$ is not necessarily orthogonally diagonalizable. Consider, e.g., $A = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 1 \\ 0 & 0 \end{bmatrix}$, which is perfectly diagonalizable with null space in the anti-diagonal direction; Yet, you can check that $B = A + \text{Proj}_{N(A)}$ no longer has the eigenvector $(1,0)^T$ of $A$, since $(1,0)^T$ has a component in the anti-diagonal direction. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 1, 2016 at 20:13
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    $\begingroup$ @Nawai: My projector is not orthogonal: it is along $\mathop{\rm Im} A$, so all the vectors in the image are mapped to zero. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 2, 2016 at 8:13
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    $\begingroup$ @NawafBou-Rabee: the projector is $\left[\begin{matrix}0& -1\\0& 1\end{matrix}\right]$: it maps $(1,0)^T$ to $0$, but $(1,-1)^T$ to itself. The result is thus $\left[\begin{matrix}1& 0\\0& 1\end{matrix}\right]$. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 4, 2016 at 14:58

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Here we expand a bit on Ilya Bogdanov's answer: $B = A + \Pi$, where $\Pi$ is the oblique projection matrix onto the null space of $A$ along the column space of $A$.

Oblique Projection Matrix

Given an $n \times n$ matrix $A$ with rank $r$. Compute its leading $r$ left singular vectors $\{ \vec{u}_i \in \mathbb{R}^n \mid 1 \le i \le r \}$. The oblique projection matrix onto the null space of $A$ or $\text{Null}(A)$ along the column space of $A$ or $\text{Col}(A)$ is: $$ \Pi = I_n - \sum_{1 \le i \le r} \vec{u}_i \vec{u}_i^T \;. \tag{$\star$} $$

Computational Cost of Constructing Oblique Projection Matrix

Note that computing this projection matrix only requires computing a compact SVD, i.e., finding the positive eigenvalues $\{ \lambda_i \}$ of $A^T A$ and their associated eigenvectors $\{ \vec{v}_i \}$. Then set $$ \vec{u}_i = \frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda_i}} A \vec{v}_i \tag{$\diamond$} $$ for $1 \le i \le r$.

Why does ($\star$) work?

Recall that the left singular vectors are an orthonormal basis for $\text{Col}(A)$. Thus, one can always write the projection as: $$ \Pi \vec{x} = \vec{x} -\sum_{1 \le i \le r} \alpha_i (\vec{u}_i \bullet \vec{x}) \vec{u}_i $$ where the scalars $\{ \alpha_i \}$ are determined such that $\Pi \vec{x} \in \text{Null}(A) = \text{Null}(A^TA)$. In particular, $$ (A A^T \vec{u}_j) \bullet ( \vec{x} - \sum_{1 \le i \le r} \alpha_i \vec{u}_i ) = 0 \implies \alpha_i = \vec{u}_i \bullet \vec{x} \quad \text{for $1 \le i \le r$} $$ which gives the oblique projection map in ($\star$).

Transformed Matrix

Ilya proposed to the transform $B=A + \Pi$. This works because if $\vec{x}$ is an eigenvector of $A$ with nonzero eigenvalue then clearly $\vec{x} \in \text{Col}(A)$ and $$ B \vec{x} = A \vec{x} = \lambda \vec{x} $$ On the other hand, if $\vec{x}$ is an eigenvector of $A$ associated with a zero eigenvalue then $\vec{x} \in \text{Null}(A)$ or $\vec{x} \perp \text{Col}(A^T)$, and hence from ($\diamond$), $$ B \vec{x} = \vec{x} $$ So, $B$ fulfills the OP's desiderata.

MATLAB Implementation

One can replace $A$ below with any diagonalizable matrix.

% construction

A = [1 1 1; -2 -2 -1; 0 0 -1];
[n,n]=size(A);
r=rank(A);
[U,S,V]=svds(A,r);
B=A+(eye(n)-U*U');

% verification

[vectorsA,valuesA]=eig(A);
[vectorsB,valuesB]=eig(B);

valuesA=diag(valuesA);
ix=~(valuesA==0);
valuesA=valuesA(ix);
vectorsA=vectorsA(:,ix);

for i=1:length(valuesA)
  B*vectorsA(:,i)-valuesA(i)*vectorsA(:,i)
end
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