Linear bijective maps preserving fixed products of matrices (Q1984355)

Let \(\mathcal{M}=\mathcal{M}_{n}\) be the algebra of all \(n\times n\) complex matrices, and fix \(M,N\in\mathcal{M}\). In this paper, the linear bijective maps \(\phi:\mathcal{M}\to\mathcal{M}\) such that \(\phi(A)\phi(B)=M\) whenever \(AB=N\) are described explicitly. Namely, when \(M\) or \(N\) is not invertible, such a \(\phi\) is given exactly by \(\phi=\phi_{\alpha,U}\) for some some nonzero complex number \(\alpha\) and some invertible matrix \(U\) in \(\mathcal{M}\) with \(\alpha^{2}UN=MU\), where \(\phi_{\alpha,U}:\mathcal{M}\to\mathcal{M}\) is defined by \(\phi_{\alpha,U}(T)=\alpha UTU^{-1}\) for all \(T\in\mathcal{M}\); when \(M\) and \(N\) are both invertible, then such a \(\phi\) is precisely a \(\phi_{\alpha,U}\) or a \(\psi_{\beta,V}\), where \(\beta\in\mathbb{C}\) is nonzero, \(V\in\mathcal{M}\) invertible with \(\beta^{2}VN^{\text{t}}=M^{-1}V\), and \(\psi_{\beta,V}:\mathcal{M}\to\mathcal{M}\) is defined by \(\psi_{\beta,V}(T)=\beta VT^{\text{t}}V^{-1}\) for all \(T\in\mathcal{M}\). In order to get the explicit form of particular linear maps on \(\mathcal{M}\), the following matrix equations are solved. Let \(C\in\mathcal{M}\) and let \(\mathcal{P}=\{(A,B)\in\mathcal{M}^{2}\mid AB=C\}\). (1) If \(X\in\mathcal{M}\) is such that \(AXB=XC\) for all \((A,B)\in\mathcal{P}\), then \(X=\alpha I_{n}\) for some \(\alpha\in\mathbb{C}\); (2) if \(Y\in\mathcal{M}_{n}\) is such that \(BYA=CY\) for all\((A,B)\in\mathcal{P}\), then \(YC=CY=\beta I_{n}\) for some \(\beta\in\mathbb{C}\).