Two-generated commutative matrix subalgebras (Q2639125)

This paper gives a purely matrix theoretic proof of a classical result of \textit{M. Gerstenhaber} [Ann. Math., II. Ser. 73, 324-348 (1961; Zbl 0168.282)]: Let A and B be two \(n\times n\) matrices over a field such that A and B commute. Then the dimension of the algebra \({\mathcal A}\) generated by A, B and the identity matrix is at most n. Gerstenhaber uses methods from algebraic geometry in his proof, while this proof works by reduction to the case of an algebraically closed field and a careful study of what the commutativity condition implies via the Jordan canonical form. (A similar proof was obtained by \textit{J. Barria} and \textit{P. R. Halmos}: Vector bases for two commuting matrices. [Linear Multilinear Algebra 27, 147-157 (1990)]). If all Jordan blocks of one of the matrices are of the same size, if there is only one eigenvalue, and if the field has characteristic zero then the algebra \({\mathcal A}\) has dimension n if and only if \({\mathcal A}\) is maximal as a commutative subalgebra of the \(n\times n\) matrices.