On almost scrambling stochastic matrices (Q910463)

Let S denote the set of all \(n\times n\) stochastic matrices. For \(P\in S\) put \(v(P)=\max_{i,j}\max_{x}\{| (Px^ T)_ i-(Px^ T)_ j|:x_ i-x_ j=\max_{\alpha,\beta}| x_{\alpha}- x_{\beta}| =1,\quad x=(x_ 1,..,x_ n)\in {\mathbb{C}}^ n\}.\) Suppose \(K\subseteq S\) is such that the product of n-1 members of K is scrambling, i.e. no two rows in such a product are orthogonal. For any \(P\in S\) and any nonempty subset B of \(N=\{1,2,...,n\}\), let \(F(B)=\{j\in N:\) for some \(i\in B\), \(p_{ij}>0\}\). It is shown that for \(P\in S\), \(v(P)<1\) iff for all nonempty disjoint subsets \(A,\tilde A\) of N for which \(F(A)\) and \(F(\tilde A)\) are disjoint, either \(F(A)\supseteq A\cup \tilde A\) or \(F(\tilde A)\supseteq A\cup \tilde A\), and that all such P belong to K.