Properties of symmetric matrices (Q1771395): Difference between revisions

The two main results in this paper describe the set of extreme and smooth points of the unit ball of the Banach space of real symmetric \( n \times n \)-matrices, where the norm of a matrix is defined as the maximum absolute value of its eigenvalues. It is proved that a symmetric real matrix is an extreme point of the unit ball if and only if all its eigenvalues are \(\pm{1}\). The smooth points of the unit ball are those elements that have exactly one eigenvalue which is \(\pm{1}\).