The relation between the diagonal entries and the eigenvalues of a symmetric matrix, based upon the sign pattern of its off-diagonal entries (Q1931752)

The paper studies the relationship between the eigenvalues, the diagonal entries and the sign-patterns of the nondiagonal entries of real symmetric \(n\times n\) matrices. The idea builds on the Schur-Horn theorem, which says that for any two real vectors \(d=(d_i)_{i=1}^n\) and \(\lambda=(\lambda_i)_{i=1}^n\) with their entries arranged in nonincreasing order there exists a symmetric matrix with diagonal values \(d\) and eigenvalues \(\lambda\) if and only if \(\lambda\) majorizes \(d\), i.e. \(\sum_{i=1}^k d_i\leq \sum_{i=1}^k \lambda_i\) for \(k=1,\dots ,n\) with equality for \(k=n\). For certain classes of symmetric matrices further relationships hold between the diagonal entries and eigenvalues. Such classes are defined based on the sign-pattern of the off-diagonal entries. It is observed that neither the diagonal entries, the eigenvalues, nor the symmetry of the matrix \(A\) are changed under a similarity transformation \(P^{-1}AP\), if \(P\) is a permutation or a signature matrix (a diagonal matrix with \(\pm 1\) on the diagonal). Two basic classes or types of symmetric matrices are defined: \(A\) is of type P (type Z) if it can be transformed by operations of permutation and signature similarity to a form for which all the off-diagonal entries are nonnegative (nonpositive). For general \(n\) the following sufficient condition for the existence of type Z matrices (and similarly for type P) is proved: For two nonincreasing vectors \(d\) and \(\lambda\) such that \(\lambda\) majorizes \(d\) there exists a matrix of type Z if \[ \lambda_j\geq d_{j+1} \quad\text{for }j=2,3,\dots,n-1. \] For \(n=3\) it is shown that any real symmetric matrix \(A\) is of type P or type Z. For \(n=4\) one more type needs to be introduced in order to classify all symmetric matrices. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the type of \(A\) based on the comparisons of diagonal entries and eigenvalues are formulated. The given description is complete for \(n=3\) and leaves one case open for \(n=4\). The authors provide a clear presentation of their findings and put them in the context of the results known from the literature.