Characterizations of term-rank preservers over Boolean matrices (Q411971)

Let \(M_{m,n}\) be the set of all \(m\times n\) matrices over the Boolean algebra \(\{0,1\}\). The term rank \(t(X)\) of a matrix \(X\in M_{m,n}\) is the least number of lines (rows and columns) needed to include all the nonzero entries of \(X\). A proper cover is a set of rows and columns that cover all the nonzero entries of \(X\) but not all the entries of \(X\). The authors also introduce a concept of pure proper cover and let \(P_{m,n}\) be the set of all matrices which either do not have a proper covering or have a pure proper covering. For a linear operator \(T\) on \(M_{m,n}\) (\(2\leq m\leq n\)), we say that \(T\) (1) preserves term rank \(k\) if \(t(T(X))=k\) whenever \(t(X)=k\); (2) strongly preserves term rank \(k\) if \(t(T(X))=k\) if and only if \(t(X)=k\); (3) preserves term rank if \(T\) preserves term rank \(k\) for every \(k\leq m\). The authors show that the following four statements are equivalent: (a) \(T\) preserves term rank; (b) \(T\) strongly preserves term rank \(m-1\); (c) \(T(P_{m,n})\subseteq P_{m,n})\) and \(T\) preserves term rank \(k\) and \(k+1\) for some \(k\); (d) \(T(P_{m,n})\subseteq P_{m,n})\) and \(T\) strongly preserves term rank \(k\) for some \(k\).