The reconstruction of a special kind of periodic Jacobi matrices (Q417496)

An \(n\times n\) Jacobi matrix is a real symmetric tridiagonal matrix which can be specified by the list \(\alpha_{1},\dots ,\alpha_{n}\) of diagonal entries and the list \(\beta_{1},\dots ,\beta_{n-1}\) of entries in the upper and lower diagonals. An \(n\times n\) periodic Jacobi matrix (PJM) is obtained by modifying a Jacobi matrix by replacing the zeros in the \((1,n)\)th and the \((n,1)\)th positions by a nonzero entry \(\beta_{n}\), and it is assumed that all \(\beta_{i}>0\). If \(\hat{J}_{n}\) is an \(n\times n\) PJM, then we obtain an \((n-1)\times(n-1)\) Jacobi matrix \(J_{n-1}\) by deleting the last row and last column of \(\hat{J}_{n}\). If \(\lambda_{1}\leq\lambda_{2}\leq\dots\leq\lambda_{n}\) are the eigenvalues of \(\hat{J}_{n}\) and \(\mu_{1}\leq\dots \leq\mu_{n-1}\) are the eigenvalues of \(J_{n-1}\) then it is known that (*): \(\lambda_{i}\leq\mu _{i}\leq\lambda_{i+1}\) and \(\mu_{i}<\mu_{i+1}\) for \(i=1,\dots ,n-1.\) The inverse problem for PJMs is as follows: given \(\lambda_{i}\) and \(\mu_{j}\) which satisfy (*) and \(\beta>0\), determine whether there is a PJM \(\hat{J}_{n}\) and corresponding submatrix \(J_{n-1}\) with these eigenvalues and with \(\beta _{1}\dots \beta_{n}=\beta\). The book of \textit{S.-f. Xu} [An introduction to inverse algebraic eigenvalue problems. Wiesbaden: Vieweg. Peking: Peking University Press (1998; Zbl 0927.65057)] gives an existence theorem for the inverse problem for PJMs, and [\textit{Y.-H. Xu} and \textit{E.-X. Jiang}, Inverse Probl. 23, No. 1, 165--181 (2007; Zbl 1155.65330)] gave a necessary and sufficient condition for the uniqueness of a solution. In the present paper the author gives a simpler condition for uniqueness: the inverse problem for PJMs has a unique solution if and only if there is a solution such that \(\alpha_{i}=\alpha _{n-i}\) (\(i=1,\dots ,n-1\)), \(\beta_{i}=\beta_{n-1-i}\) (\(i=1,\dots .n-2\)) and \(\beta_{n}=\beta_{n-1}\). The final sections of the paper describe a numerical algorithm for determining the unique \(\hat{J}_{n}\) when these uniqueness conditions hold.