Inertia of some conditionally negative definite matrices (Q1989147)

Let \(\mathcal{H}_{1}\) be the subspace of \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) consisting of the vectors \(x\) whose coordinates sum to \(0\). A symmetric real \(n\times n\) matrix \(A\) is called conditionally negative definite (cnd) if \(\langle x,Ax\rangle \leq0\) for all \(x\in\mathcal{H}_{1}\). A continuous function \(h:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}\) is called a cnd function if for every list \(p_{1},\dots,p_{n}\) of real numbers the \(n\times n\) matrix \([h(p_{i}-p_{j})]_{i,j}\) is a cnd matrix. A cnd matrix \(A\) with \(\operatorname{tr}(A)\geq0\) satisfies \(\langle x,Ax\rangle <0\) for all \(x\in\mathcal{H}_{1}\) if and only if \(A\) is nonsingular with exactly one positive eigenvalue and \(n-1\) negative eigenvalues; we shall say such matrices are of class (*). The object of the present paper is to give some general constructions of matrices of class (*): Theorem. Let \(f:[0,\infty)\rightarrow\lbrack0,\infty)\) be a nonlinear operator montone function and \(g:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\lbrack0,\infty)\) be a cnd function such that \(g(0)=0\) and \(g(0)\neq0\) for \(t\neq0\). Then for all real numbers \(p_{1},\dots,p_{n}\) the matrix \([f(g(p_{i}-p_{j}))]_{i,j}\) is of class (*). Theorem. Let \(f\) be a nonconstant entire function of the form \(f(z)=f(0)\prod_{k=1}^{\infty}(1+z^{2}/\alpha_{k}^{2})\) where \(\{\alpha_{k}\} \) is a real sequence tending to \(\infty\). Then for each \(\nu\in\lbrack0,1)\) and every list \(p_{1},\dots,p_{n}\) of distinct real numbers the matrix \([\log(f(p_{i}-p_{j}))-\log(f(\nu(p_{i}-p_{j})))]_{i,j}\) is in class (*).