On skew-symmetric Toeplitz matrices over finite fields with periodicity conditions (Q2133677)

Let \((a_{n})_{n\geq0}\) be a sequence on a finite field \(\mathcal{F}\) with \(a_{0}=0.\) Consider the skew-symmetric Toeplitz matrix \( \mathcal{A}\) associated with the above sequence. Let denote by \(\mathcal{A}_{n}, n=1, \dots,\) the leading principal submatrix of \( \mathcal{A}\) of size \(n\times n.\) The dimension \(\nu_{n}\) of the kernel of \(\mathcal{A}_{n}\) is known in the literature as the nullity of \(\mathcal{A}_{n}.\) A sequence \((a_{n})_{n\geq0}\) is said to be eventually periodic, with eventual period \(p,\) if there exists a nonnegative number \(m\) and a positive integer \(p\) such that \(a_{n+p}= a_{n}\) for every \(n >m.\) If \(p\) is the minimum positive integer number such that the above property holds, it is said to be the least period of the sequence. On the other hand, given a sequence \((a_{n})_{n\geq0}\), then the sequence \((a_{n})_{n\in \mathbb Z}\) where \(a_{-n}= -a_{n}, n\geq 0,\) is said to be the reflected or mirror sequence of \((a_{n})_{n\geq0}.\) In [\textit{G. L. Price} and \textit{G. H. Truitt}, Linear Algebra Appl. 294, No. 1--3, 49--66 (1999; Zbl 0943.15013)], for \((a_{n})_{n\geq0}\) eventually periodic and finitely nonzero the period of the nullity sequence along with its maximum value is determined as well as the fact that the nullity sequence satisfies a symmetry condition concerning its maxima. Indeed, if \(\nu_{q}\)= max\( \{\nu_{n}\}_{n\geq1},\) then for all \(j\leq q, \nu_{q-j}= \nu_{q+j}.\) The natural question is to analyze the case when the sequence \((a_{n})_{n\geq0}\) is not finitely nonzero, i.e., the matrix \( \mathcal{A}\) is not finite bandwidth. In this paper, the author proves that if the sequence \((a_{n})_{n\geq0}\) is eventually periodic but not mirror periodic, then the nullity sequence \((\nu_{n})_{n\geq1}\) is also eventually periodic. On the other hand, for \(s\) a certain multiple of the period of the nullity sequence, a recursion formula yields the vectors of the kernel of the matrix \(\mathcal{A}_{n+qs}\) from those of the kernel of \(\mathcal{A}_{n}\) for \(n\) large enough and for nonnegative integers \(q.\)