Disconjugacy of symplectic systems and positive definiteness of block tridiagonal matrices (Q1567147)

Consider the difference system \[ z_{k+1}= {\mathcal S}_kz_k,\quad 0 \leq k\leq N,\tag{S} \] where for each \(k=0,\dots,N\), \(z_k\in \mathbb{R}^{2n}\) and \({\mathcal S}_k\in \mathbb{R}^{2n\times 2n}\) is a symplectic matrix. The author studies the relatonship between the disconjugacy of system (S) and the positive definiteness of a certain symmetric block tridiagonal matrix associated with (S). The main theorem is a generalization of a recent result obtained by \textit{M. Bohner} and \textit{O. Došlý} for linear Hamiltonian difference systems [J. Differ. Equations 163, No. 1, 113-129 (2000; reviewed below)].