Direct complements of invariant Lagrangian subspaces and minimal factorizations of skew-symmetric rational matrix functions (Q1210389)

It is proved that generically a proper skew-symmetric \(m\times m\) real rational matrix function \(W(\lambda)\), with \(W(\infty)\) invertible, can be minimally factorized as \(W(\lambda)=L^ T(\lambda)DL(\lambda)\), where \(D=-D^ T=W(\infty)\), and \(L(\lambda)\) is a real rational \(m\times m\) matrix function with \(\delta(W)=2\delta(L)\), where \(\delta\) denotes the McMillan degree of a rational matrix function. Several connections with invariant Lagrangian subspaces, realization theory, and skew-symmetric algebraic Riccati equation are made. Extensions to the case of complex matrices and rational matrix functions are also considered.