On the existence of flat orthogonal matrices (Q343245)

For a given real orthogonal \(n \times n\) matrix \(M\) let \(l_{M}\) (\(u_{M}\)) be the minimum (maximum) of the absolute values of its entries, and \(l_{n}\) (\(u_{n}\)) the maximum (minimum) of \(l_{M}\) (\(u_{M}\)) over all such \(M\). If all entries of \(M\) are \(\pm\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}\), then \(M\) is a Hadamard matrix. In this paper, the authors investigate the existence of real orthogonal matrices with the property that the absolute values of their entries are all close to \(\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}\), and for this purpose they introduce a measure of the flatness of \(M\), which is the maximum difference between \(\sqrt{n}\) times the absolute values of its entries and 1. After the introductory section, the next one deals with general constructions leading to bounds on \(l_{n}\) and \(u_{n}\) valid for arbitrary \(n\). The last section gives improved bounds when \(n\) has certain arithmetic properties.