Tropical matrix groups (Q1640010)

The tropical semiring \((\mathbb{R} \cup \infty, \oplus, \cdot\)) is given by the real numbers \(\mathbb{R}\) with an additional element \(\infty\). The tropical sum ``\(\oplus\)'' is defined by taking the minimum of summands and the tropical multiplication ``\(\cdot\)'' is defined as the sum of the multiplicands. The authors study various properties of the semigroup of real square matrices with tropical multiplication and the connection of it with tropical polytopes. One of the main results of this paper is the identification between maximal subgroups of tropical square matrices and the linear automorphism group of the associated tropical polytope. It is furthermore shown that maximal subgroups of full rank admit an embedding into the group of units of the corresponding semigroup of tropical matrices. Various corollaries of this result are then established. In particular, it is shown that that each such maximal subgroup is isomorphic to a direct product of the real numbers with a finite group.