The real positive definite completion problem for a simple cycle (Q1311311)

The problem examined in this article is whether a positive definite completion exists for an arbitrary real partial positive definite matrix. A real partial matrix \(A\) is one in which some entries are specified real numbers and the remainders are free variables over the reals. \(A\) is partial symmetric if \(A\) is square, \(a_{ji}\) is specified whenever \(a_{ij}\) is, and \(a_{ji}=a_{ij}\). A partial positive definite matrix is a partial symmetric matrix each of whose specified principal submatrix is positive definite. A completion of a partial matrix is an assignment of values to be free variables resulting in a conventional matrix. Attention is restricted to matrices whose associated graph \(G\) is a simple cycle (given a partial symmetric \(n \times n\) matrix, the associated graph \(G=(N,E)\) has vertex set \(N=\{1,2,\dots,n\}\) and an edge \(\{i,j\} \in E\), \(i \neq j\), if and only if \(a_{ij}\) is specified). Two alternative solutions to this problem are given.