Quasideterminants. I (Q1126915)

The authors give a connected account of their theory of determinants over skew fields [begun in their papers: Funkts. Anal. Prilozh. 25, No. 2, 13-25 (1991; Zbl 0748.15005), 26, No. 4, 1-20 (1992; Zbl 0799.15003) and Publ. LACIM, UQAM Montreal 14, 1-26 (1993)]. The basic idea is to define, for an \(n\times n\) matrix \(A=(a_{ij})\) a set of \(n^2\) quasi-determinants by induction on \(n\), by the formula \(| A|_{pq}=a_{pq}-\sum a_{pj}| A^{pq}|^{-1}_{ij}a_{iq}\), where the sum is taken over all \(i\neq p\), \(j\neq q\) and \(A^{pq}\) denotes the matrix of order \(n-1\) obtained by omitting the \(p\)th row and the \(q\)th column. Many results in the commutative theory have analogues which are proved here. Of course the definitions assume that \(A\) is a generic matrix with entries in a skew field (usually the free skew field). Let \(A\) be of order \(n\) and consider a left linear \(k\)-dimensional subspace spanned by certain rows of \(A\), where \(1\leq k\leq n\). The authors define quasi-Plücker coordinates for this subspace in terms of the entries of \(A\), which reduce to the usual Plücker coordinates in the commutative case. They prove relations reminiscent of the usual Plücker relations and introduce non-commutative cross-ratios. In the remainder of the paper, the authors discuss various generalizations of commutative notions such as the Vandermonde determinant, the theorems of Bézout and Vieta relating to the roots of an algebraic equation, symmetric functions, continued fractions associated with a Jacobian matrix and determinants of almost triangular matrices, i.e. \(A=(a_{ij})\) with \(a_{ij}=0\) for \(i>j+1\).