A note on the construction of a positive oscillatory matrix with a prescribed spectrum (Q5948712)

Small vibrations of elastic systems are closely related to the so called oscillatory matrices \(A\) of order \(n\), and the paper offers a new reconstruction of an \(A\) from its decreasing \(n\)-plet of positive eigenvalues. There are several key ideas used: firstly the fact that the \((n-1)\)-st power of the tridiagonal \(A\) is totally positive, secondly a trick of reparametrizing the spectrum and giving the related auxiliary \(T\) whose \((n-1)\)-compound matrix is shown to be the desired new, cheaper and numerically stable representation of \(A\).