Hessenberg pairs of linear transformations (Q840655)

Let \(V\) be a finite dimensional space over a field \(K\) and \((A,B)\) be a pair of endomorphisms of \(V\). The author calls \((A,B)\) a Hessenberg pair if \(A\) and \(B\) are both diagonalizable and it is possible to order the eigenspaces \(V_{0},\dots,V_{s}\), say, of \(A\) such that \(B\) maps \(V_{i}\) into the sum of the first \(i+1\) eigenspaces for each \(i\), and the analogous property holds for \(B\) with respect to \(A\). We shall say that \((A,B)\) is irreducible if the algebra generated by \(\left\{ A,B\right\} \) is irreducible. When \((A,B)\) is an irreducible Hessenberg pair, it can be shown that \(A\) and \(B\) have the same number of distinct eigenvalues. The main result of the paper is the following. Suppose that \((A,B)\) is an irreducible pair of diagonizable linear transformations with equal numbers of distinct eigenvalues, say \(\theta _{0},\dots,\theta_{d}\) and \(\theta_{0}^{\prime},\dots,\theta_{d}^{\prime}\), respectively. Then \((A,B)\) is a Hessenberg pair if and only if there exists a subspace decomposition \(V=U_{0}\oplus\dots\oplus U_{d}\) such that \((A-\theta _{n-i}I)U_{i}\subseteq U_{i+1}\) and \((B-\theta_{i}^{\prime}I)U_{i}\subseteq U_{i-1}\) for all \(i\) (take \(U_{-1}=U_{d+1}=0\)).