A uniqueness theorem on matrices and reconstruction (Q2519027)

The following theorem is proved. Let \(A\) and \(B\) be two integral symmetric matrices with the same irreducible characteristic polynomial. If there exists a rational orthogonal matrix \(Q\) such that \(B=Q^TAQ\) then \(Q\) is unique up to sign. This application to the reconstruction of matrices is then deduced. For any matrix \(X\) let \(X_i\) denote the submatrix obtained by deleting the \(i\)th row and the \(i\)th column. Suppose \(A\) and \(B\) are two integral symmetric \(n\times n\) matrices with the same irreducible characteristic polynomial and suppose that the characteristic polynomials of \(A_i\) and \(B_i\) are equal, for each \(1\leq i \leq n\). Then there exists a diagonal matrix \(D\) with each entry equal to \(\pm 1\) such that \(B=DAD\).