Simple image set of linear mappings in a max--min algebra (Q875596)

For a given linear mapping, determined by a square matrix \(A\) in a max-min algebra, the simple image set \(SA\) of \(A\) is considered. It is shown that if the matrix \(A\) is generally trapezoidal, then the closure of \(SA\) is a subset of the set of all eigenvectors of \(A\). The simple image set of the matrix square and the topological aspects of the problem are also described. Problems in many research areas, such as system theory, graph theory, scheduling, knowledge engineering, can be formulated in a compact way using the language of extremal algebra. The aim of this paper is to describe the simple image set of a given max-min linear mapping. The simple image set of the matrix square and the topological aspects of the problem are described in the last two sections. The authors close Section 4 by a simple example. The results on the simple image set of a given max-min matrix are extended to matrix powers in Section 5. The last section is topological aspects.