Tropical linear maps on the plane (Q550671)

The author fully describes all tropical linear maps \(f_A\) in the tropical projective plane \(\mathbb{TP}^2\), that is, maps from the tropical plane to itself given by tropical multiplication by a real \(3\times 3\) matrix \(A\). The map \(f_A\) is continuous and piecewise-linear in the classical sense. In some particular cases, the map \(f_A\) is a parallel projection onto the set spanned by the columns of \(A\). In the general case, after a change of coordinates, the map collapses at most three regions of the plane onto certain segments, called antennas, and is a parallel projection elsewhere. In order to study \(f_A\), it can be assumed that \(A\) is normal, i.e., \(I\leq A\leq 0\), up to changes of coordinates. A given matrix \(A\) admits infinitely many normalizations. The approach is to define and compute a unique normalization for \(A\) (which is called lower canonical normalization) and then always work with it, due both to its algebraic simplicity and its geometrical meaning.