The characteristic polynomial and determinant are not ad hoc constructions

We present algorithms and heuristics to compute the characteristic polynomial of a matrix given its minimal polynomial. The matrix is represented as a black-box, i.e., by a function to compute its matrix-vector product. The methods apply to matrices either over the integers or over a large enough finite field. Experiments show that these methods perform efficiently in practice. Combined in an adaptive strategy, these algorithms reach significant speedups in practice for some ...

This note concerns a one-line diagrammatic proof of the Cayley-Hamilton Theorem. We discuss the proof's implications regarding the "core truth" of the theorem, and provide a generalization. We review the notation of trace diagrams and exhibit explicit diagrammatic descriptions of the coefficients of the characteristic polynomial, which occur as the n+1 "simplest" trace diagrams. We close with a discussion of diagrammatic polarization related to the theorem.

Starting from the expression for the superdeterminant of (xI-M), where M is an arbitrary supermatrix, we propose a definition for the corresponding characteristic polynomial and we prove that each supermatrix satisfies its characteristic equation. Depending upon the factorization properties of the basic polynomials whose ratio defines the above mentioned determinant we are able to construct polynomials of lower degree which are also shown to be annihilated by the supermatrix....

For an algebraically closed field $K$ of characteristic zero and a non-singular matrix $A\in \mbox{GL}_n(K)$, a semi-invariant polynomial of $A$ is defined to be a polynomial $p(x)=p(x_1,\dots,x_n)$ with coefficients in $K$ such that $p(xA)=\lambda p(x)$ for some $\lambda\in K$. In this article, we classify all semi-invariant polynomials of $A$ in terms of a canonically constructed basis that will be made precise in the text.

We describe some aspects of spectral theory that involve algebraic considerations but need no analysis. Some of the important applications of the results are to the algebra of $n\times n$ matrices with entries that are polynomials or more general analytic functions.

The determinant is a main organizing tool in commutative linear algebra. In this review we present a theory of the quasideterminants defined for matrices over a division algebra. We believe that the notion of quasideterminants should be one of main organizing tools in noncommutative algebra giving them the same role determinants play in commutative algebra.

The problem of expressing a multivariate polynomial as the determinant of a monic (definite) symmetric or Hermitian linear matrix polynomial (LMP) has drawn a huge amount of attention due to its connection with optimization problems. In this paper we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of \textit{monic Hermitian determinantal representation} as well as \textit{monic symmetric determinantal representation} of size $2$ for a given quadratic polynomial...

Let k be a field, n a positive integer, X a generic nxn matrix over k (i.e., a matrix (x_{ij}) of n^2 independent indeterminates over the polynomial ring k[x_{ij}]), and adj(X) its classical adjoint. It is shown that if char k=0 and n is odd, then adj(X) is not the product of two noninvertible nxn matrices over k[x_{ij}]. If n is even and >2, a restricted class of nontrivial factorizations occur. The nonzero-characteristic case remains open. The operation adj on matrices ar...

For a Lie algebra ${\mathcal L}$ with basis $\{x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_n\}$, its associated characteristic polynomial $Q_{{\mathcal L}}(z)$ is the determinant of the linear pencil $z_0I+z_1\text{ad} x_1+\cdots +z_n\text{ad} x_n.$ This paper shows that $Q_{\mathcal L}$ is invariant under the automorphism group $\text{Aut}({\mathcal L}).$ The zero variety and factorization of $Q_{\mathcal L}$ reflect the structure of ${\mathcal L}$. In the case ${\mathcal L}$ is solvable $Q_{\mathcal ...

Let $F$ be a field of prime characteristic $p$ containing $F_{p^n}$ as a subfield. We refer to $q(X)=X^{p^n}-X-a\in F[X]$ as a generalized Artin-Schreier polynomial. Suppose that $q(X)$ is irreducible and let $C_{q(X)}$ be the companion matrix of $q(X)$. Then $ad\, C_{q(X)}$ has such highly unusual properties that any $A\in{\mathfrak{ gl}}(m)$ such that $ad\, A$ has like properties is shown to be similar to the companion matrix of an irreducible generalized Artin-Schreier pol...