Eigenvalues of Hermitian matrices with positive sum of bounded rank (Q855538)

Given \(n\)-tuples of real numbers \(\alpha(s)=(\alpha_1(s),\cdots,\alpha_n(s))\) for \(1\leq s\leq m\) arranged in nonincreasing order, and an integer \(1\leq r\leq n\). As the main result it is shown that there exist \(n\times n\) Hermitian matrices \(A(s)\) for \(1\leq s\leq m\) such that each \(A(s)\) has the eigenvalue \(\alpha(s)\) and the sum \(A(1)+\cdots+A(m)\) is positive semidefinite with rank at most \(r\), if and only if the following two conditions are satisfied: \[ \sum^m_{s=1}\sum_{i\in I(s)}\alpha_i(s)\geq0 \tag{1} \] for all sequences \((I(1),\cdots,I(m))\) of subsets of \(\{1,\cdots,n\}\) of the same cardinality \(1\leq t\leq n\) such that \(s_{\{n-t+1,n-t+2, \cdots,n\}}\) in the Schur expansion of the product \(s_{I(1)}\cdots s_{I(m)}\) equals \(1\); \[ \sum_{s=1}^m\sum_{p\in P(s)}\alpha_{n+1-p}(s)\leq0 \tag{2} \] for all sequences \((P(1), \cdots, P(m))\) of subsets of \(\{1,\cdots,n-r\}\) of the same cardinality \(1\leq t\leq n-r\) such that \(s_{\{n-r-t+1,n-r-t+2, \cdots,n-r\}}\) has coefficient \(1\) in the product \(s_{P(1)}\cdots s_{P(m)}\). In the notation used in (1) and (2), for a set of positive integers \(I=\{a_1<\cdots<a_t\}\), \(s_I= \det(h_{a_i-j})_{t\times t}\) is the Schur function for the partition \(\lambda(I)=(a_t-t,\cdots,a_2-2,a_1-1)\), where \(h_i\) is the complete symmetric function of degree \(i\). The condition (1) was used previously by \textit{W. Fulton} [Linear Algebra Appl. 319, No. 1--3, 23--36 (2000; Zbl 0968.15010)] to charactrize that the \(n\)-tuples \(\alpha(1),\cdots,\alpha(m)\) are eigenvalues of Hermition matrices with positive semidefinite sum without the restriction on the rank.