Maximization of a matrix function related to the Dittert conjecture (Q1184482)

Let \(K_ n\) denote the set of all nonnegative \(n\times n\) matrices whose entries have sum \(n\). For \(k=1,\ldots n\), denote by \(Q_{k,n}\) the set of strictly increasing sequences of length \(k\) chosen from \(1,\ldots ,n\). For any such \(k\) and for \(A\in K_ n\) with row sums \(r_ 1,\ldots ,r_ n\) and column sums \(c_ 1,\ldots ,c_ n\), let \(\varphi_ k(A)=\sum_{\alpha,\beta\in Q_{k,n}}(\prod_{i\in \alpha}r_ i+\prod_{j\in \beta}c_ j-\hbox{per} A[\alpha\mid \beta])\), where \(A[\alpha\mid \beta]\) is the \(k\times k\) submatrix of \(A\) with rows indexed by \(\alpha\) and columns indexed by \(\beta\). The authors consider several conjectures and problems related to the maximization of each \(\varphi_ k\) on \(K_ n\).