Hill representations for \(\ast\)-linear matrix maps (Q2076511)

The content of this paper is closely related to the content of another paper by the same authors, see [Linear Algebra Appl. 628, 140--181 (2021; Zbl 1476.15046)]. We borrow some of the notation from that review. Consider a linear matrix map \(\mathcal L: \mathbb F^{q\times q} \to \mathbb F^{n\times n}\). \textit{R. D. Hill} [Linear Algebra Appl. 6, 257--262 (1973; Zbl 0252.15012)] studied representations of linear maps \(\mathcal L\) of the form \[\mathcal L(V) = \sum_{k,l = 1}^m \mathbb H_{kl} A_l V A_k^\ast\] for matrices \(A_1,\dotsc,A_m \in \mathbb F^{n\times q}\) and showed that \(\mathcal L\) is \(\ast\)-linear if and only if \([\mathbb H_{kl}]_{k,l=1}^m \in \mathbb F^{m \times m}\) is Hermitian. The various connections of such representations of \(\mathcal L\) and the matrix \([\mathbb H_{kl}]\) were further studied by \textit{R. D. Hill} and collaborators in subsequent papers. In this paper, the authors refer to a representation of \(\mathcal L\) via the matrices \(A_1,\dotsc,A_m\) having \(m\) minimal as a \textit{minimal Hill representation} and ask: which matrices \(A_1,\dotsc,A_m\) can occur? The first main result (see Theorem 1.1) can be summarized as following. Theorem. If \(\mathcal L\) is \(\ast\)-linear and \(m\) is chosen as the rank of the so-called \textit{Choi matrix} \(\mathbb L\) associated to \(\mathcal L\), then \(\mathcal L\) admits a minimal Hill representation with \(A_1,\dotsc,A_m\) determined by the matricization \(L\) associated to \(\mathcal L\). Moreover, all minimal Hill representations of \(\mathcal L\) follow this prescription, and any matrices \(A_1,\dotsc,A_m\) satisfying a spanning relation with the block matrices in the matricization \(L\) appear in some Hill representation of \(\mathcal L\). The second main result (see Theorem 1.2), which shall be explained much more succinctly, relates two minimal Hill representations of \(\mathcal L\) corresponding to the sets of matrices \(A_1,\dotsc,A_m\) and \(A_1',\dotsc,A_m'\) via a certain invertible matrix in \(\mathbb F^{m\times m}\). Structurally, the paper spends some time on preliminaries and provides a partial literature review for related results in Sections 3 and 4, which will be invaluable to the reader. The main contribution is Section 5 (which proves the two main theorems above) and several worked examples in Section 6.