The equality of the Siler cones \(K_3\) and \(K_4\), the general case (Q616409)

Let \(L(M_n(\mathbb{C}),M_n(\mathbb{C}) )\) be the set of linear maps \(T: M_n(\mathbb{C}) \longrightarrow M_n(\mathbb{C})\). It is said that \(T\) is Hermitian-preserving if and only if for every Hermitian matrix \(H\), \(T(H)\) is also Hermitian, and that \(T\) is \(PSD\)-preserving if and only if for every positive semidefinite matrix \(H\), \(T(H)\) is also positive semidefinite. The set of Hermitian-preserving linear maps in \(L(M_n(\mathbb{C}),M_n(\mathbb{C}) )\) is denoted by \(HP_n\), and the set of \(PSD\)-preserving linear maps by \(\pi(PSD_n)\). In this paper, the authors study two cones in \(HP_n\) which were defined by Siler in his D.A. Thesis: \[ \begin{aligned} & K_3^n=\{T \in HP_n \;: \;PT(P) \in PSD_n \;\text{for every} \;P \in PSD_n \},\\ & K_4^n=\{T \in HP_n \;: \;PT(P)+T(P)P \in PSD_n \;\text{for every} \;P \in PSD_n \}, \end{aligned} \] where \(PSD_n\) denotes the set of Hermitian positive semidefinite matrices. The main result of this work is that actually \(K_3^n=K_4^n\) for all \(n \geq 2\). Specifically, the authors prove that for \(T \in HP_n\), the following statements are equivalent: {\parindent=8mm \begin{itemize}\item[(i)] For some \(W \in PSD_n\) and \(a \in \mathbb{R}\) with \(\lambda_{\min}(W)+a \geq 0\), \(T=T_{W,a}\), where \(\lambda_{\min}(W)\) denotes the minimal eigenvalue of \(W\) and \(T_{W,a}(A)=tr(WA)I+aA\), \item[(ii)] \(T \in K_3^n\), \item[(iii)] \(T \in K_4^n\). \end{itemize}}