The inverse problems of the determinantal regions of ray pattern and complex sign pattern matrices (Q2496653)

The ray pattern of a complex matrix \(A\) is the matrix obtained from \(A\) by replacing each entry by its ray (where the ray of \(z=a+ib\) is 0 for \(z=0\) and \(z/|z|\) otherwise). The ray pattern class \(Q_R(A)\) is the set of all matrices having the same ray pattern as \(A\). The complex sign pattern of \(A\) is the matrix obtained from \(A\) by replacing each entry by its complex sign (where the complex sign of \(z=a+ib\) is \(\operatorname{csgn}z= \operatorname{sgn}a+ i\operatorname{sgn}b\)). The complex sign pattern class \(Q_S(A)\) is similarly defined. If \(A\) is a complex square matrix the sets \(R_A=\{\det B \mid B\in Q_R(A)\}\) and \(S_A=\{\det B \mid B\in Q_S(A)\}\) are called the ray determinantal region of \(A\) and the complex determinantal region of \(A\) respectively. The inverse problem of the determinantal regions is considered, namely the problem of finding all the subsets of \(\mathbb{C}\) which can be the determinantal region \(R_A\) (or \(S_A\)) for some complex matrix \(A\). The number \(n_R(A)\) of the connected components of the set \(R_A\setminus\{0\}\) and its analogue \(n_S(A)\) are also studied. It is shown that if \(R_A\) (respectively \(S_A\)) is not contained in a line through the origin, then \(n_R(A)\leq 2\) (\(n_S(A)\leq 2\)) and \(n_R(A)= 2\) (respectively \(n_S(A)= 2\)) if and only if there exists an open sector \(F\) with the angle \(\alpha (F)\leq \pi \) such that \(R(A)\) (respectively \(S(A)\)) equals \(F\cup\{0\}\cup(-F)\). These results are used to refine the results about the inverse problem obtained by \textit{J.-Y. Shao} and \textit{H.-Y. Shan} [ibid. 395, 211--228 (2005; Zbl 1066.15004)]. A more complete classification of the determinantal regions \(S_A\) is provided (and only eight undetermined regions remained). Similar results are obtained for the inverse problem for \(R_A\) and all the possible determinantal regions \(R_A\) are determined, except only one type, namely the class of regions which consist of the union of \(\{0\}\) and an open sector with an angle greater than \(\pi\).