A note on approximate Hadamard matrices (Q6618629)

A Hadamard matrix is a scaled \(n\times n\) orthogonal matrix with \(\pm 1\) entries. The Hadamard conjecture is that such a matrix always exists when \(n\) is a multiple of 4. A conjecture attributed to Ryser is that no circulant Hadamard matrices exist when \(n > 4\). \textit{X. Dong} and \textit{M. Rudelson} [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2024, No. 3, 2044--2065 (2024; \url{doi:10.1093/imrn/rnad080})] proved the existence of approximate Hadamard matrices in all dimensions: there exist universal \(0 < c < C < \infty\) so that for all \(n \geq 1\), there is a matrix \(A \in \{-1, 1\}^{n\times n}\) satisfying, for all \(x \in \mathbb{R}^{n}\), \(c\sqrt{n}\|x\|_{2}\leq \|Ax\|_{2}\leq C\sqrt{n}\|x\|_{2}\). The main purpose of this short paper is to note that the above result is true under the additional condition that the matrix is a circulant matrix with entries \(\pm 1\). As a consequence of the existence of flat Littlewood polynomials, circulant approximate Hadamard matrices exist for all \(n \geq 1\). Two conjectures conclude the paper.