Completely positive matrices of order five (Q5957990)

A real matrix of order \(n\) is called doubly nonnegative if it is nonnegative entrywise and positive semidefinite as well. A real matrix \(A\) of order \(n\) is called completely positive if there exist \(k\) (\(k\) is a positive integer) nonnegative column vectors \(b_1,b_2,\dots ,b_k\) of \(\mathbb R^n\) such that \(A=b_1b_1'+b_2b_2'+\dots +b_kb_k'\) (here \(b_i'\) stands for the transpose of \(b_i\)). The smallest such number \(k\) is called the factorization index of \(A\). From the definitions it is easy to see that each completely positive matrix is also nonnegative; the viceversa holds for \(n \leq 4\), but for \(n \geq 5\) counterexamples are known. No efficient method has been found to cope with the general case for complete positivity of a matrix of order \(n \geq 5\) up to now. The author determines which doubly nonnegative matrix of order \(5\) is completely positive and estimates its factorization index.