A property concerning the Hadamard powers of inverse \(M\)-matrices. (Q1430372)

For two real, nonnegative \(m \times n\) matrices \(A=(a_{ij})\) and \(B=(b_{ij})\) the Hadamard product is denoted and defined by \(A \circ B=(a_{ij}b_{ij})\). For \(\alpha \geq 0\) we write \(A^{(\alpha)}=(a^{\alpha}_{ij})\) for the \(\alpha\)th Hadamard power of the matrix \(A\). An \(n \times n\) matrix \(A\) is called an \(M\)-matrix if its off-diagonal entries are nonpositive and \(A^{-1} \geq 0\). \(A\) is called an inverse \(M\)-matrix if \(A^{-1}\) is an \(M\)-matrix. In this paper special properties of the Hadamard powers of inverse \(M\)-matrices are obtained, namely, that if \(A=(a_{ij})\) is an \(n \times n\) inverse \(M\)-matrix then \(A^{(k)}=(a^k_{ij})\) is an inverse \(M\)-matrix for any positive integer \(k > 1\). When \(k=2\), this shows that the conjecture of \textit{M. Neumann} [Linear Algebra Appl. 285, 277--290 (1998; Zbl 0932.15003)] is valid.