A rapidly-converging lower bound for the joint spectral radius via multiplicative ergodic theory (Q607349)

Given \(\mathbf A\) a bounded nonempty set of \(d\times d\) complex matrices. The joint spectral radius of \(\mathbf A\) introduced by Rota and Strang is \[ \varrho ({\mathbf A}) := \lim_{n\to\infty}\sup \{\|A_n, \dots A_1\|^{1/n}: A_i\in {\mathbf A}\} \] where \(\|\cdot\|\) denotes any norm on \({\mathbb C}^d\). Berger-Wang formula asserts that \[ \varrho ({\mathbf A}) = \lim_{n\to\infty}\sup \{\rho(A_n, \dots A_1)^{1/n}: A_i\in {\mathbf A}\} \] where \(\rho(A)\) denotes the spectral radius of a matrix \(A\). The rate of convergence of Berger-Wang formula is studied. A main result asserts that for any positive real number \(r\) \[ \varrho ({\mathbf A}) - \max_{1\leq k\leq n} \varrho _k^-({\mathbf A})=O\left(\frac 1{n^r}\right)\tag{1.2} \] where \[ \varrho _n^-({\mathbf A}) := \sup\{ \rho(A_n\cdots A_1)^{1/n}: A_i\in {\mathbf A}\}. \] A more general result is obtained when \(\mathbf A\) is nonempty compact. The proof rests on a structure theorem for continuous matrix cocycles over minimal homemorphisms having the property that all forward products are uniformly bounded. Possible extensions of (ref {1.2}) are discussed. A comprehensive list of references is given.