Determinants of block tridiagonal matrices (Q947687)

A block tridiagonal matrix \(M\) is a block matrix with square blocks all of the same dimension (say, \(m\times m\)) and whose nonzero blocks lie on the main diagonal (say, \(A_{1},A_{2},...,A_{n}\)) and the diagonals lying immediately above and below the main diagonal (say, \(B_{1},B_{2},\dots,B_{n-1}\) and \(C_{1},C_{2},\dots,C_{n-1}\)). Assuming that the \(B_{i}^{\prime}s\) are invertible, define the ``transfer matrix'' \[ T^{(0)}:=\left[ \begin{matrix} -A_{n} & -C_{n-1}\\ I_{m} & 0 \end{matrix} \right] \left[ \begin{matrix} -B_{n-1}^{-1}A_{n-1} & -B_{n-1}^{-1}C_{n-2}\\ I_{m} & 0 \end{matrix} \right] \cdots\left[ \begin{matrix} -B_{1}^{-1}A_{1} & -B_{1}^{-1}\\ I_{m} & 0 \end{matrix} \right] . \] It is shown that the determinant of \(M\) is equal to \((-1)^{nm}\det (T_{11}^{(0)})\det(B_{1}B_{2}\dots B_{n-1})\) where \(T_{11}^{(0)}\) is the top left block in \(T^{(0)}.\) The author notes that a different, but equivalent, formula was given by \textit{D. K. Salkuyeh} [Appl. Math. Comput. 176, No. 2, 442--444 (2006; Zbl 1094.65507)].