On the Hadamard-Fischer inequality, the inclusion-exclusion formula, and bipartite graphs (Q6102089)

Let \(N:=\{1,2,\dots,n\}\) and let \(A:=(a_{ij})\) be an \(n\times n\) matrix. The Hadamard-Fischer-Koteljanskii inequality states that for any index sets \(\alpha,\beta\subseteq N\), the inequality \[ \det A[\alpha\cup\beta] \det A[\alpha\cap\beta] \leq \det A[\alpha] \det A[\beta] \] holds. In this work, the Hadamard-Fischer-Koteljanskii inequality is extended. In particular, the authors find sufficient and necessary conditions on a collection of index sets \(\{\alpha_1,\dots,\alpha_p\}\) such that the inequality \[ \det A[\cup_{i=1}^p\alpha_i]\prod_{l\text{ even}}\prod_{|S|=l} \det A[\cap_{i\in S}\alpha_i] \leq \prod_{l\text{ even}}\prod_{|S|=l} \det A[\cap_{i\in S}\alpha_i] \] holds for all positive semidefinite matrices, where \(S\) runs over all nonempty subsets of \(\{1,\dots,p\}\). They describe general structures of the collection of index sets involved. In analyzing these structures, it is found a graph-theoretical property that applies to bipartite graphs.