Rank-preserving diagonal completions of a matrix (Q1085238)

The authors define the off-diagonal rank of a matrix A to be the smallest integer w such that there exists a \(w\times w\) nonsingular submatrix of A which does not contain any diagonal entries of A, and every \((w+1)\times (w+1)\) submatrix of A is either singular or contains a diagonal entry of A. They also define A to have (a) totally the rank r if A has rank r and all \(r\times r\) submatrices of A are nonsingular, and (b) totally the off-diagonal rank r if it has off-diagonal rank r and all \(r\times r\) submatrices not containing a diagonal entry of A are nonsingular. The main result of the paper is: if A is \(n\times n\) and has totally the off- diagonal rank r, where \(n\geq 3r\) and (n,r)\(\neq (3,1)\), then it is possible to adjust the diagonal entries of A in such a way that the resulting matrix has totally the rank r.