Minimum permanents on certain doubly stochastic matrices (Q923671)

For any \(m\times m\) (0,1) matrix D let \(\Omega\) (D) denote the set of \(m\times m\) doubly stochastic matrices X such that \(x_{ij}=0\) whenever \(d_{ij}=0\). Let \(K_ 2,K_{2,n},K_{n,2}\), be the \(2\times 2,2\times n\), and \(n\times 2\) matrices of ones, respectively, and let \(I_ n\) denote the \(n\times n\) identity matrix. Put \(U_{2,n}=\left( \begin{matrix} 0\\ K_{n,2}\end{matrix} \begin{matrix} K_{2,n}\\ I_ n\end{matrix} \right)\) and \(V_{2,n}=\left( \begin{matrix} K_ 2\\ K_{n,2}\end{matrix} \begin{matrix} K_{2,n}\\ I_ n\end{matrix} \right)\). It is shown that for \(n\geq 4\) the minimum permanent on each of \(\Omega (U_{2,n})\) and \(\Omega (V_{2,n})\) occurs uniquely at \(\left( \begin{matrix} 0\\ 1/nK_{n,2}\end{matrix} \begin{matrix} 1/nK_{2,n}\\ (n-2)/nI_ n\end{matrix} \right)\) and has the value \(\frac{2(n-1)(n-2)^{n-2}}{n^{n+1}}\).