A perturbation bound for the generalized polar decomposition (Q688636)

Let \(A\) be an \(m\times n\) complex matrix. A decomposition \(A = QH\) is called a generalized polar decomposition of \(A\) if \(Q\) is an \(m\times n\) subunitary matrix and \(H\) a positive semidefinite Hermitian matrix. It is proved that a nonzero matrix \(A \in \mathbb{C}^{m\times n}\) has a unique generalized polar decomposition \(A = QH\) with the property \(R(Q^ H) = R(H)\), where \(Q^ H\) denotes the conjugate transpose of \(Q\) and \(R(H)\) the column space of \(H\). Perturbation bounds associated with the polar decomposition of a nonsingular matrix were studied by \textit{A. Barrlund} [BIT 30, No. 1, 101- 112 (1990; Zbl 0701.15016)]. The main result of this paper is a perturbation bound for \(Q\) when \(A\) is perturbed.