A nonnegative matrix $A$ is called primitive if $A^k$ is positive for some integer $k>0$. A generalization of this concept to finite sets of matrices is as follows: a set of matrices $\mathcal M = \{A_1, A_2, \ldots, A_m \}$ is primitive if $A_{i_1} A_{i_2} \ldots A_{i_k}$ is positive for some indices $i_1, i_2, ..., i_k$. The concept of primitive sets of matrices comes up in a number of problems within the study of discrete-time switched systems. In this paper, we analyze the computational complexity of deciding if a given set of matrices is primitive and we derive bounds on the length of the shortest positive product.
We show that while primitivity is algorithmically decidable, unless $P=NP$ it is not possible to decide primitivity of a matrix set in polynomial time. Moreover, we show that the length of the shortest positive sequence can be superpolynomial in the dimension of the matrices. On the other hand, defining ${\mathcal P}$ to be the set of matrices with no zero rows or columns, we give a simple combinatorial proof of a previously-known characterization of primitivity for matrices in ${\mathcal P}$ which can be tested in polynomial time. This latter observation is related to the well-known 1964 conjecture of Cerny on synchronizing automata; in fact, any bound on the minimal length of a synchronizing word for synchronizing automata immediately translates into a bound on the length of the shortest positive product of a primitive set of matrices in ${\mathcal P}$. In particular, any primitive set of $n \times n$ matrices in ${\mathcal P}$ has a positive product of length $O(n^3)$.
We consider the important class of quantum operations (completely positive trace-preserving maps) called entanglement breaking channels. We show how every such channel induces stochastic matrix representations that have the same non-zero spectrum as the channel. We then use this to investigate when entanglement breaking channels are primitive, and prove this depends on primitivity of the matrix representations. This in turn leads to tight bounds on the primitivity index of entanglement breaking channels in terms of the primitivity index of the associated stochastic matrices. We also present ex…
We show that for every subset $E$ of positive density in the set of integer square-matrices with zero traces, there exists an integer $k \geq 1$ such that the set of characteristic polynomials of matrices in $E-E$ contains the set of \emph{all} characteristic polynomials of integer matrices with zero traces and entries divisible by $k$. Our theorem is derived from results by Benoist-Quint on measure rigidity for actions on homogeneous spaces.
A synchrony subspace of R^n is defined by setting certain components of the vectors equal according to an equivalence relation. Synchrony subspaces invariant under a given set of square matrices form a lattice. Applications of these invariant synchrony subspaces include equitable and almost equitable partitions of the vertices of a graph used in many areas of graph theory, balanced and exo-balanced partitions of coupled cell networks, and coset partitions of Cayley graphs. We study the basic properties of invariant synchrony subspaces and provide many examples of the applications. We also pres…
Since some years, non-overlapping sets of strings (also called cross-bifix-free sets) have had an increasing interest in the frame of the researches about Theory of Codes. Recently some non-overlapping sets of strings with variable length were introduced. Moreover, the notion of non-overlapping strings has been naturally extended to the two dimensional case leading to several definitions of non-overlapping sets of matrices (or pictures). Starting from these results, in this paper we introduce non-overlapping sets of binary matrices having variable dimension. Indeed, we use non-overlapping vari…
In this paper a variety of issues are discussed, Schur ring, $S$-sets, circulant orbits, decimation operator and Hadamard matrices and their relation between them is shown. Firstly we define the complete $S$-sets. Next, we study the structure of Schur ring with circulant basic sets over $\Z_{2}^{n}$ and we define the free and non-free circulant $S$-sets, the symmetric, non-symmetric and antisymmetric circulant $S$-sets. We prove that all this $S$-sets are invariants under decimation. Finally, we prove that if a Hadamard matrix exist then this is contained in a complete $S$-set. Also, we prove …
A finite or infinite matrix $A$ is image partition regular provided that whenever $\mathbb{N}$ is finitely colored, there must be some $\overset{\rightarrow}{x}$ with entries from $\mathbb{N}$ such that all entries of $A \overset{\rightarrow}{x}$ are in the same color class. Comparing to the finite case, infinite image partition regular matrices seem more harder to analyze. The concept of centrally image partition regular matrices were introduced to extend the results of finite image partition regular matrices to infinite one. In this paper, we shall introduce the notion of C-image partition r…
We introduce a new class of complex Hadamard matrices which have not been studied previously. We use these matrices to construct a new infinite family of parity proofs of the Kochen-Specker theorem. We show that the recently discovered simple parity proof of the Kochen-Specker theorem is the initial member of this infinite family.
A two-intersection set with parameters $(j;α,β)$ for a block design is a $j$-subset of the point set of the design, which intersects every block in $α$ or $β$ points. In this paper, we show the existence of a two-intersection set with parameters $(2m^2-m+1;m^2-m,m^2)$ for the block design obtained from translations of the set of nonzero squares in the finite field of order $q=4m^2+1$. As an application, we give a construction of conference matrices with maximum excess based on the two-intersection sets.
An SIA matrix is a stochastic matrix whose sequence of powers converges to a rank-one matrix. This convergence is desirable in various applications making use of stochastic matrices, such as consensus, distributed optimization and Markov chains. We study the shortest SIA products of sets of matrices. We observe that the shortest SIA product of a set of matrices is usually very short and we provide a first upper bound on the length of the shortest SIA product (if one exists) of any set of stochastic matrices. We also provide an algorithm that decides the existence of an SIA product. When partic…
We investigate $(0,1)$-matrices that are {\em convex}, which means that the ones are consecutive in every row and column. These matrices occur in discrete tomography. The notion of ranked essential sets, known for permutation matrices, is extended to convex sets. We show a number of results for the class $\mc{C}(R,S)$ of convex matrices with given row and column sum vectors $R$ and $S$. Also, it is shown that the ranked essential set uniquely determines a matrix in $\mc{C}(R,S)$.
A symmetric $m\times m$ matrix $M$ with entries taken from $\{0,1,\ast\}$ gives rise to a graph partition problem, asking whether a graph can be partitioned into $m$ vertex sets matched to the rows (and corresponding columns) of $M$ such that, if $M_{ij}=1$, then any two vertices between the corresponding vertex sets are joined by an edge, and if $M_{ij}=0$ then any two vertices between the corresponding vertex sets are not joined by an edge. The entry $\ast$ places no restriction on the edges between the corresponding sets. This problem generalises graph colouring and graph homomorphism probl…
Banca d’Italia（意大利银行）；Université Catholique de Louvain（鲁汶天主教大学）
A set of nonnegative matrices is called primitive if there exists a product of these matrices that is entrywise positive. Motivated by recent results relating synchronizing automata and primitive sets, we study the length of the shortest product of a primitive set having a column or a row with k positive entries, called its k-rendezvous time (k-RT}), in the case of sets of matrices having no zero rows and no zero columns. We prove that the k-RT is at most linear w.r.t. the matrix size n for small k, while the problem is still open for synchronizing automata. We provide two upper bounds on the …
A new family of asymmetric matrices of Walsh-Hadamard type is introduced. We study their properties and, in particular, compute their determinants and discuss their eigenvalues. The invertibility of these matrices implies that certain character formulas are invertible, yielding expressions for the cardinalities of sets of combinatorial objects with prescribed descent sets in terms of character values of the symmetric group.
Let $F$ be a field and $M_n(F)$ the ring of $n \times n$ matrices over $F$. Given a subset $S$ of $M_n(F)$, the null ideal of $S$ is the set of all polynomials $f$ with coefficients from $M_n(F)$ such that $f(A) = 0$ for all $A \in S$. We say that $S$ is core if the null ideal of $S$ is a two-sided ideal of the polynomial ring $M_n(F)[x]$. We study sufficient conditions under which $S$ is core in the case where $S$ consists of $3 \times 3$ matrices, all of which share the same irreducible characteristic polynomial. In particular, we show that if $F$ is finite with $q$ elements and $|S| \geqsla…
The complete classification of all 6x6 complex Hadamard matrices is an open problem. The 3-parameter Karlsson family encapsulates all Hadamards that have been parametrised explicitly. We prove that such matrices satisfy a non-trivial constraint conjectured to hold for (almost) all 6x6 Hadamard matrices. Our result imposes additional conditions in the linear programming approach to the mutually unbiased bases problem recently proposed by Matolcsi et al. Unfortunately running the linear programs we were unable to conclude that a complete set of mutually unbiased bases cannot be constructed from …
Given a real symmetric $n\times n$ matrix, the sepr-sequence $t_1\cdots t_n$ records information about the existence of principal minors of each order that are positive, negative, or zero. This paper extends the notion of the sepr-sequence to matrices whose entries are of prescribed signs, that is, to sign patterns. A sufficient condition is given for a sign pattern to have a unique sepr-sequence, and it is conjectured to be necessary. The sepr-sequences of sign semi-stable patterns are shown to be well-structured; in some special circumstances, the sepr-sequence is enough to guarantee the sig…
A bidimensional bifix (in short bibifix) of a square matrix T is a square submatrix of T which occurs in the top-left and bottom-right corners of T. This allows us to extend the definition of bifix-free words and cross-bifix-free set of words to bidimensional structures. In this paper we exhaustively generate all the bibifix-free square matrices and we construct a particular non-expandable cross-bibifix-free set of square matrices. Moreover, we provide a Gray code for listing this set.
We present several results describing the interplay between the max algebraic joint spectral radius (JSR) for compact sets of matrices and suitably defined matrix norms. In particular, we extend a classical result for the conventional algebra, showing that the JSR can be described in terms of induced norms of the matrices in the set. We also show that for a set generating an irreducible semigroup (in a cone-theoretic sense), a monotone Barabanov norm always exists. This fact is then used to show that the max algebraic JSR is locally Lipschitz continuous on the space of compact irreducible sets…
We establish lower bounds on the rank of matrices in which all but the diagonal entries lie in a multiplicative group of small rank. Applying these bounds we show that the distance sets of finite pointsets in $\mathbb{R}^d$ generate high rank multiplicative groups and that multiplicative groups of small rank cannot contain large sumsets.
