Convergence of the iterated Aluthge transform sequence for diagonalizable matrices (Q2456221)

Given an \(r\times r\) complex matrix \(T\), let \(T=U| T| \), where the matrices \(U\) and \(| T| \) are respectively unitary and nonnegatively defined Hermitian, be the polar decomposition of \(T\). The Aluthge transform of \(T\) is defined by \[ \Delta (T)=| T| ^{1/2}U| T| ^{1/2}. \] Let \(\Delta^n (T)\) denote the \(n\)-times iterated Aluthge transform of \(T\), i.e. \(\Delta^n (T)=\Delta (\Delta^{n-1} (T))\), \(n\in\mathbb N\). In the paper it is shown that the sequence \(\{\Delta^n (T)\}_{n\in\mathbb N}\) converges for every \(r\times r\) diagonalizable matrix \(T\). It is also shown that the limit \(\Delta^{\infty}(\cdot)\) is a map of class \(C^{\infty}\) on the similarity orbit of a diagonalizable matrix, and on the set of \(r\times r\) matrices with \(r\) different eigenvalues.