On additive transformations preserving a multiplicative matrix function (Q2383653)

This is a short but interesting paper written in poor English. It classifies additive surjections \(\Phi\) on matrices over a skew-field, which preserve a fixed nontrivial (=nonconstant) multiplicative map \(f\) in a sense that \(f(X)=f(\Phi(X))\). The map \(f\) is quite liberal as its range may be any multiplicative Abelian group, augmented with zero. The main result has many applications. Some of them are already listed in the paper as almost trivial consequences of the Main Theorem. This list includes surjective preservers of the determinant, of invertibility, and of rank-additivity; these results were obtained earlier by much longer methods. The main idea is a reduction to adjacency-preserving bijection, with the help of an elegantly short Lemma, which, in essence, states that a matrix \(A\) has rank-one precisely when \((A+X)\) or \((2A+X)\) are invertible, for any \(X\). This is coupled with the fact that a nontrivial multiplicative map \(f\) satisfies \(f(B)\neq 0\) precisely when~\(B\) is invertible. The two facts combined then show that, for additive surjection \(\Phi\), \(f(X)=f(\Phi(X))\) implies that \(\Phi\) preserves adjacency. Reviewer's Remark: A similar classification of rank-one operators in terms of invertibility was also obtained earlier; c.f. Lemma 2.1 in \textit{P. Šemrl} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 130, No. 3, 769--772 (2002; Zbl 1037.47022)]. For noninvertibility it was done in Lemma 2.1 of \textit{J. Hou} and \textit{J. Cui} [Linear Algebra Appl. 359, No. 1--3, 219--233 (2003; Zbl 1042.47028)]. It can be traced back at least as far as Theorem 1 in \textit{A. A. Jafarian} and \textit{A. R. Sourour} [J. Funct. Anal. 66, 255--261 (1986; Zbl 0589.47003)].