Totally Nonnegative Matrices

Description

Totally nonnegative matrices arise in a remarkable variety of mathematical applications. This book is a comprehensive and self-contained study of the essential theory of totally nonnegative matrices, defined by the nonnegativity of all subdeterminants. It explores methodological background, historical highlights of key ideas, and specialized topics. The book uses classical and ad hoc tools, but a unifying theme is the elementary bidiagonal factorization, which has emerged as the single most important tool for this particular class of matrices. Recent work has shown that bidiagonal factorizations may be viewed in a succinct combinatorial way, leading to many deep insights. Despite slow development, bidiagonal factorizations, along with determinants, now provide the dominant methodology for understanding total nonnegativity. The remainder of the book treats important topics, such as recognition of totally nonnegative or totally positive matrices, variation diminution, spectral properties, determinantal inequalities, Hadamard products, and completion problems associated with totally nonnegative or totally positive matrices. The book also contains sample applications, an up-to-date bibliography, a glossary of all symbols used, an index, and related references.

Shaun M. Fallat is professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Regina. Charles R. Johnson is the Class of 1961 Professor of Mathematics at the College of William & Mary.

"This book is a very useful new reference on the subject of TN matrices and it will be of interest to researchers on matrix theory as well as to researchers of any field where total positivity has applications."--Juan Manuel Pefia, Mathematical Reviews