Monotonicity for entrywise functions of matrices (Q836995)

Let \(M_{n}(R;\alpha )=\{A=[a_{ij}]\in M_{n}(R):a_{ij}\in (-\alpha ,\alpha )\) for all \(i,j=1,\dots,n;0<\alpha \leq \infty \}\). For a real function \ \(f\) on the open interval \((-\alpha ,\alpha )\) and for a matrix \(A=[a_{ij}]\) \(\;\)in \(\;M_{n}(R;\alpha )\), the matrix \(f[A]\) is obtained by applying \(f\) to all entries of \(A~,\) i.e. \(f[A]:=[f(a_{ij})]\). The author characterizes real functions \(f\) on an interval \ \((-\alpha,\alpha )\) for which the entrywise matrix function \([a_{ij}]\) \(\rightarrow [ f(a_{ij})]\) is positive, monotone, and convex, respectively in the positive semidefiniteness order. Fractional power functions are exemplified and related weak majorizations are shown.