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49 votes
3 answers
4k views

Is this proof of Perron's theorem correct, and if so is it original?

A few years ago, I came up with this proof of Perron's theorem for a class presentation: https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~web6720/Perron-Frobenius_Hannah%20Cairns.pdf I've written an outline of it below ...
Hannah Cairns's user avatar
35 votes
3 answers
4k views

A curious determinantal inequality

In my study, I come across the following curious inequality, which I do not know a proof yet (so I am asking it here). Let $A, B$ be $n\times n$ (Hermitian) positive definite matrices. It is very ...
M. Lin's user avatar
  • 1,748
26 votes
1 answer
1k views

Real square roots of symmetric matrices

In joint work with Andreas Fischle (TU Dresden, Germany) and Patrizio Neff (U Essen, Germany) we needed to use the following statement: If $S$ is a real $n\times n$ matrix with $S^2$ symmetric, then ...
Lev Borisov's user avatar
  • 5,186
21 votes
1 answer
2k views

Almost commuting unitary matrices

Suppose that $A_1,\dots, A_k$ are unitary matrices such that any two of them can be approximated by commuting unitary matrices. i.e. for any $i$ and $j$, there are unitary matrices $A_i'$ and $A_j'$ ...
Omid Hatami's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
3k views

2x2 subdeterminants of a matrix

If N>2, it is well known that if two invertible NxN matrices A and B have the same determinants of any 2x2 corresponding submatrices, then A=B or A=-B. Given then all these 2x2 determinants of an ...
Carlo Mantegazza's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
2k views

Hlawka inequality for determinants of positive definite matrices

It is mentioned here that if $A, B, C\in M_{n}(\mathbb C)$ are positive semidefinite, then $$\det (A+B+C)+\det C\ge \det (A+C)+\det (B+C)$$ (quoted from this article) and the special case ($C=\bf 0$) $...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.4k
16 votes
0 answers
488 views

An inequality for matrix norms

Working on a problem in combinatorics I come up with the following inequality on matrix norms, which I checked it also numerically: Let $A=(a_{ij})$ be a real symmetric $n\times n$ matrix with ...
Mostafa - Free Palestine's user avatar
15 votes
3 answers
3k views

Determinant of a $k \times k$ block matrix

Consider the $k \times k$ block matrix: $$C = \left(\begin{array}{ccccc} A & B & B & \cdots & B \\ B & A & B &\cdots & B \\ \vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \...
amcalde's user avatar
  • 301
14 votes
5 answers
5k views

Matrix trace & norm [closed]

For any nonnegative semidefinite matrix $A$ and any matrix $B$, we have $$\mbox{tr} (AB) \le \mbox{tr} (A) \, \|B\|$$ where $\mbox{tr}(\cdot)$ is the trace and $\|\cdot\|$ is the operator norm. How ...
Ivanov's user avatar
  • 157
14 votes
4 answers
3k views

Vandermonde matrix is totally positive

A totally positive matrix $M\in \mathcal{M}_{n\times m}(\mathbb R)$ is such that all of its minors of all sizes are positive. It is true that any Vandermonde matrix (with well-ordered positive entries)...
Loïc Teyssier's user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
574 views

A simple but curious determinantal inequality

Let $A$ and $B$ be $n\times n$ Hermitian positive definite matrices and $k>0$ real. Then $A^k$ is well-defined and experimentally, we have $$\det(A^k+BABA^{-1})\geqslant \det(A^k+BA^{-1}BA),$$or ...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.4k
12 votes
2 answers
3k views

On the positive definiteness of a linear combination of matrices

In my work in PDE, the following problem in linear algebra came up. Any help in this direction is appreciated. QUESTION: Let $m,n\in\mathbb{N}$ and let $A_1,\ldots, A_m\in M_n(\mathbb{R})$ be real, ...
Tatin's user avatar
  • 895
12 votes
0 answers
508 views

More mysterious properties of Gram matrix

This is another question related to the mysterious properties of the Gram matrix in dimension $4$. Here's the previous question. The following fact could be extracted from 0402087: For any $a_i\...
Daniil Rudenko's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
218 views

Which ordering of factors is needed to obtain this kind of determinantal inequalities?

Let $A$ and $B$ be $n\times n$ Hermitian positive definite matrices. The curious determinantal inequality given here, which can be stated as $$\det (A^{4}+ ABBA+BAAB+B^{4})\ge\det(A^{4}+ AABB+BBAA+B^{...
Wolfgang's user avatar
  • 13.4k
12 votes
0 answers
314 views

Ratio of entries of A and log A where A is a triangular matrix

Consider triangular matrices $A = \left( {a(n,k)} \right)$ of arbitrary order with $a(n,k) = 0$ if $n + k$ is odd and $a(n,n - 2k) = \frac{{n!}}{{k!(n - 2k)!}}\frac{{(m + n - k - 1)!}}{{(m + n - 1)!}}$...
Johann Cigler's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
777 views

Trace of non-commutable matrices

Let $M_1$ and $M_2$ be two symmetric $d\times d$ matrices. What is the relationship between $tr(M_1M_2M_1M_2)$ and $tr(M_1^2 M_2^2 )$? P.S. I tried a few examples and found $$ tr(M_1M_2M_1M_2) \le tr(...
Nikolayevich's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
2k views

Inverse of a small submatrix

Let $A$ be a large matrix (say, $1000 \times 1000$), and let $\mathcal I = \{2,3,5\}$ be a set of row/column indices. Let $(A^{-1})_{\cal I \times I}$ denote the submatrix of $A^{-1}$ that consists of ...
John Smith's user avatar
11 votes
0 answers
313 views

Jaffard's theorem - finite matrices

For infinite matrices, Jaffard's theorem states that if $(A(k,l))_{k,l\in \mathbb{Z}}$ is invertible and satisfies $$ A(k,l) \leq C (1+\left|k-l\right|)^{-r}, $$ for some $C>0$, then $$ A^{-1}(k,...
Ozzy's user avatar
  • 393
10 votes
3 answers
455 views

When does $\det(\frac{A+A^T}{2})=\det(A)$ for positive-definite $\frac{A+A^T}{2}$?

Setup: Let $A$ be a real square matrix and assume its symmetric part $\frac{A+A^T}{2}$ is positive-definite. The inequality $$ \det\left(\frac{A+A^T}{2}\right) \leq \lvert\det(A)\rvert $$ is known as ...
Aditya Bandekar's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
733 views

Product $PVPVP$ is elementwise nonnegative?

Let $P\in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ be the inverse of a positive definite M-matrix and $V\in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ be any diagonal matrix. Prove (or disprove) that $PVPVP$ is elementwise nonnegative. ...
vansy's user avatar
  • 143
10 votes
1 answer
615 views

A curious determinantal inequality I

Let $A, B$ be Hermitian matrices. Does the following hold? $$\det(A^{2}+B^{2}+|AB+BA|)\leq \det(A^{2}+B^{2}+|AB|+|BA|)$$ As usual, $|X|=(X^*X)^{1/2}$. Clearly, quantities on both sides are no less ...
M. Lin's user avatar
  • 1,748
10 votes
1 answer
3k views

Reverse Minkowski (and related) Determinant Inequalities

For positive semidefinite matrices $A,B,C \in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$, the following inequalities are well known: $$(\det(A+B))^{1/n} \geq (\det A)^{1/n} + (\det B)^{1/n} $$ and $$\det(A+B+C) + \...
Tom's user avatar
  • 716
10 votes
2 answers
5k views

Nuclear norm as minimum of Frobenius norm product

Nuclear, or trace, or Ky Fan, norm of a matrix is defined as the sum of the singular values of the matrix. It is claimed that $$ \|X\|_\sigma = \min_{UV^T=X} \|U\|\|V\| = \min_{UV^T=X} \frac{1}{2}(\|...
Hans's user avatar
  • 2,239
10 votes
1 answer
630 views

Minimum distance of a symmetric matrix to diagonal matrices

Let $A=(a_{ij})$ be an arbitrary $n \times n$ real symmetric matrix and $n\geq 2$. Let $\| \cdot \|$ denote the operator $2$-norm or equivalently the maximum absolute value of eigenvalues for ...
Mostafa - Free Palestine's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
894 views

Inverse of special upper triangular matrix

Consider the following $n \times n$ upper triangular matrix with a particularly nice structure: \begin{equation}\mathbf{P} = \begin{pmatrix} 1 & \beta & \alpha+\beta & \dots & (n-3)\...
dff's user avatar
  • 230
9 votes
3 answers
4k views

Fast Upper Triangular Matrix Exponentiation

Let $Q_n$ be a $n\times n$ matrix with $Q_n=\begin{pmatrix} -\lambda_1-\mu_1 & \lambda_1 & 0 & \cdots\\ 0 & -\lambda_2-\mu_2 & \lambda_2 & \cdots\\ \vdots & \vdots & \...
Alex R.'s user avatar
  • 4,952
9 votes
1 answer
954 views

Convexity of the product of two exponential matrices

Let $S\subset\mathbb{R}$ be a convex set and $\mathbb{S}^{n}$ be the set of real symmetric matrices of order $n\times n$. A matrix valued function $\Gamma: S \rightarrow \mathbb{S}^{n}$ is said to ...
Tadashi's user avatar
  • 1,590
9 votes
1 answer
804 views

A singular value-eigenvalue inequality

Singular value or eigenvalue problems lie at the center of matrix analysis. One classical result is $$\lambda_{j}(X^{*}X+Y^{*}Y)\geq 2\sigma_j(XY^*)$$ for $j \in \{1, \ldots, n\}$, where $\lambda_j(\...
M. Lin's user avatar
  • 1,748
9 votes
1 answer
396 views

Bound on the ratio of top 2 eigenvalues

Let $P$ be a $n \times n$ stochastic matrix such that $P_{ij}=\tau$ if $i \neq j$ and $P_{ii} = 1 - (n-1)\tau$ where $0<\tau < \frac{1}{n}$. It is clear that the largest eigenvalue of $P$ is 1, ...
user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
1k views

Operator norm of square root of matrix vs original

If I have a nonsymmetric matrix whose operator norm is $\leq 1$ and square root it, does its operator norm remain below $1$? More formally, I want to know whether there is always at least one square ...
user149538's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
663 views

Representation theorem for matrices (reference request)

Motivation. If $A \in \mathbb{C}^{n \times n}$ is self-adjoint (or, more generally, normal), then we all know that $$ A = \sum_{k=1}^n \lambda_k \, h_k \otimes h_k, $$ where $\lambda_1,\dots,\lambda_n$...
Jochen Glueck's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
362 views

Unitary factor in polar decompositions

Let $A, B$ be $n$-square (Hermitian) positive definite matrices. Let $AB=U|AB|$ be the polar decomposition of $AB$. So $U$ is unitary (called the unitary factor of $AB$). What is the optimal constant $...
M. Lin's user avatar
  • 1,748
8 votes
1 answer
325 views

On a matrix inequality

$\newcommand{\R}{\mathbb R}\newcommand{\tr}{\operatorname{tr}}$It follows from Proposition 7 and this recent answer that, for any positive-definite $n\times n$ symmetric real matrices $A$ and $B$, $$\...
Iosif Pinelis's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
490 views

Determinants (and traces) of linear maps of matrices

Let $k$ be a field or a commutative ring with unit and let $F:M_n(k)\to M_n(k)$ be a $k$-linear map. Suppose that $F$ is given in the form $F(X) = A_1XB_1 + \cdots + A_m X B_m$ for some $A_i,B_i\in ...
M.G.'s user avatar
  • 7,127
8 votes
1 answer
603 views

Inequalities for Hadamard products of complex symmetric matrices

Consider a complex symmetric matrix $$ C= C_R + i C_I $$ with $C_R,C_I \in \text{Mat}_{n\times n}(\mathbb R)$ symmetric, and assume that the eigenvalues of $C_R$ are all strictly positive. Then, $C$ ...
martin's user avatar
  • 123
7 votes
1 answer
511 views

Is it true that $\lVert A\rVert \leq \lVert A^2\rVert$ for $A\in \operatorname{SL}(2, \mathbb{R})$ when $\operatorname{trace}(A)>2$?

$\DeclareMathOperator\SL{SL}\DeclareMathOperator\trace{trace}$Let $A \in \SL(2,\mathbb{R})$ and $\trace(A)>2$. Is it true that $$\lVert A\rVert \leq \lVert A^2\rVert,$$ where $\lVert \rVert$ is the ...
Adam's user avatar
  • 1,043
7 votes
1 answer
2k views

Bound the eigenvalue of product of matrices?

Let $H$ be a $n \times n$ real symmetric matrix that has eigenvalues with absolute value less than 1. Define the matrix $M = \prod_{i=1}^n (I - e_ie_i^{\top}H)$ where $e_i$ denotes the $i^\text{th}$ ...
user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
2k views

Optimization problem on trace of rotated positive definite matrices

Given two $n \times n$ symmetric positive definite matrices $A$ and $B$, I am interested in solving the following optimization problem over $n \times n$ unitary matrices $R$: $$ \mathrm{arg}\max_R \,\...
Norouzi's user avatar
  • 362
7 votes
1 answer
433 views

Smallest singular value of $X\mapsto AX^{T}+XA^{T}$

Question: Given the long and skinny matrix $A\in\mathbb{R}^{m\times n}$ with $m\ge n$, define the matrix valued operator $$\mathcal{A}:X\mapsto AX^{T}+XA^{T}.$$ What is the tightest nontrivial lower-...
Richard Zhang's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
390 views

Questions on symmetric Hadamard matrices

Definitions: An $n\times n$ Hadamard matrix (HM for short) is a matrix whose entries are either $1$ or $−1$ and whose rows are mutually orthogonal. If $A$ is a symmetric matrix, then $A = A^T$ and if $...
user369335's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
6k views

Eigenvectors as continuous functions of matrix - diagonal perturbations

The general question has been treated here, and the response was negative. My question is about more particular perturbations. The counterexamples given in the previous question have variations not ...
Beni Bogosel's user avatar
  • 2,222
7 votes
1 answer
271 views

Existence of a linear map resulting in the determinant being an elementary symmetric polynomial

Let $1 \leq k \leq n$ be fixed integers. Let $\mathcal{M}_n^{\mathrm{H}}$ be the set of $n \times n$ complex Hermitian matrices (if it makes it easier to answer this question, you may instead use the ...
Nathaniel Johnston's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
647 views

Is there a name for matrices of the form $a_{ij}=\frac{1}{a_{ji}}$?

I have a matrix that is “kind of symmetric.” Specifically, it is an $n \times n$ real matrix such that the entries $a_{ij}=1/a_{ji}$ whenever $j \ne i$. I want to investigate the properties of this ...
bryceadam1's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
777 views

Is every real matrix conjugate to a semi antisymmetric matrix?

Is it true to say that every matrix $A\in M_n(\mathbb{R})$ is similar (conjugate) to a matrix $B=(b_{ij})$ with $b_{ij}=-b_{ji}$ for all $i\neq j$?(With some abuse of terminology,a matrix $B$ with ...
Ali Taghavi's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
1k views

Nontrivial lower bound on the sum of matrix norms

Let $X, V\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times r}$ such that $X^\top V$ is symmetric. The central quantity I care about is \begin{equation} \|XV^\top\|_{F}^2+\|X^\top V\|_{F}^2 +[\text{Tr}(X^\top V)]^2. \end{...
Wuchen's user avatar
  • 515
6 votes
1 answer
446 views

Matrix inequality : trace of exponential of Hermitian matrix

I want to know whether the following inequality holds or not. \begin{align} (\mathrm{Tr}\exp[(A+B)/2])^2\leq(\mathrm{Tr}\exp A)(\mathrm{Tr}\exp B)\tag{1} \end{align} where $A, B$ are Hermitian ...
s hukahi's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
277 views

Diagonalization of the matrix $(1/(i+j+\rm{const}))_{i,j}$

Consider the following infinite matrix: $A_{i,j}=\frac1{i+j+\gamma}$, $0\leq i,j<\infty$, $\gamma>0$ is a constant. Is it known how to diagonalize $A$, or, say, calculate $(I+tA)^{-1}$ for ...
Fedor Petrov's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
886 views

One question on block-circulant matrices

Circulant matrices are very useful in digital image processing. I found the general formula for determinant of circulant matrix. But I think it is not suitable for block-circulant matrices. For ...
user369335's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
259 views

Distance of low-rank matrices to the identity for the $\infty$-norm

I am trying to get a lower bound (or even the exact value) of $$ \min_{X \in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}} \|X - I_n\|_{\infty} \enspace \text{s.t.} \enspace \mbox{Rank}(X) = m $$ where $m \leq n$, and the ...
PAb's user avatar
  • 197
6 votes
2 answers
236 views

Bounding the non-multiplicativity of isometric projection

Every $A \in \text{GL}_n(\mathbb{R})$ has a unique Polar decomposition: $A=O_AP_A$, $O \in \operatorname{O}_n, P \in \operatorname{Psym}_n$. In particular the orthogonal factor is given by $$O_A=A(\...
Asaf Shachar's user avatar
  • 6,741