Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra
Volume 3 ELA Volume 3 (1998) Article 9
1998
Positive definiteness of tridiagonal matrices via the
numerical range
Mao-Ting Chien
mtchien@math.math.scu.edu.tw Michael Neumann
neumann@math.uconn.edu
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Recommended Citation
Chien, Mao-Ting and Neumann, Michael. (1998), "Positive definiteness of tridiagonal matrices via the numerical range", Electronic
Journal of Linear Algebra, Volume 3.
The Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra.
A publication of the International Linear Algebra Society. Volume 3, pp. 93-102, May 1998.
ISSN 1081-3810. http://math.technion.ac.il/iic/ela
ELA
POSITIVE DEFINITENESS OF TRIDIAGONAL MATRICES
VIA THE NUMERICAL RANGE
MAO-TING CHIENy
ANDMICHAEL NEUMANN z
Dedicated to Hans Schneider on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.
Abstract. The authors use a recent characterization of the numerical range to obtain several
conditions for a symmetric tridiagonal matrix with positive diagonal entries to be positive denite.
Keywords. Positive denite, tridiagonal matrices, numerical range, spread AMSsubject classications. 15A60, 15A57
1. Introduction.
In a paper on the question of unicity of best spline approxi-mations for functions having a positive second derivative, Barrow, Chui, Smith, and Ward proved the following result.Proposition 1.1. [1, Proposition 1] Let A = (a ij)
2 R n;n
be a tridiagonal matrix with positive diagonal entries. If
a i;i,1 a i,1;i 1 4a ii a i,1;i,1 1 + 2 1 + 4n 2 ; i= 2;:::;n; then det(A)>0.
Johnson, Neumann, and Tsatsomeros improved Proposition 1.1 as follows.
Proposition 1.2. [6, Proposition 2.5, Theorem 2.4] Let A = (a ij)
2 Rbe a
tridiagonal matrix with positive diagonal entries. If
a i;i,1 a i,1;i < 1 4a ii a i,1;i,1 1 cos n+ 1 2 ; i= 2;:::;n;
then det(A)>0. In addition, ifA is(also)symmetric, then Ais positive denite.
The main purpose of this paper is to derive additional criteria, using the
numer-ical range
, for a symmetric tridiagonal matrixAwith positive diagonal entries to bepositive denite. An example of one of our results is Theorem 2.2. Recall that the
numerical range of a matrix
A2Cn;n is the set W(A) = fx Axjx2C n ; jxj= 1g:
Many of our results here will be derived with the aid of the following recent charac-terization of the numerical range due to Chien.
Received by the editors on 23 December 1997. Final manuscript accepted on 1 May 1998.
Handling editor: Daniel Hershkowitz.
yDepartment of Mathematics, Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan 11102,
Taiwan (mtchien@math.math.scu.edu.tw). Supported in part by the National Science Council of the Republic of China.
zDepartment of Mathematics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269{3009, USA
(neumann@math.uconn.edu).
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94 Mao-Ting Chien and Michael Neumann
Theorem 1.3. [2, Theorem 1] LetA2C n;n
and supposeSbe a nonzero subspace
of C n . Then W(A) = [ x;y W(A xy) ;
wherexand y vary over all unit vectors inS and S
?, respectively, and where A xy = x Ax x Ay y Ax y Ay :
Our main results are developed in Section 2 which contains several conditions for a symmetric tridiagonal matrix with positive diagonal entries to be positive denite. In Section 3 we give some examples to illustrate dierent criteria we have obtain in Section 2.
Some notations that we shall employ in this paper are as follows. Firstly, we shall usee
(k ) i ,
i= 1;:::;k, to denote thek{dimensionali{th unit coordinate vector, viz.,
thei{th entry ofe (k )
i is 1 and its remaining entries are 0.
Secondly, for a set f1;2;:::;ngdenote by 0=
f1;2;:::;ngnits complement
inf1;2;:::;ng. Thirdly, if and are subsets of f1;2;:::;ngand A 2C n;n
, then we shall denote by A[;] the submatrix of A that is determined by the rows of A indexed by and by the columns indexed by. If = , then A[;] will be
abbreviated byA[].
2. Main Results.
We come now to the main thrust of this paper which is to develop several criteria for a symmetric tridiagonal matrix with positive diagonal entries to be positive denite.Suppose rst thatAis annnHermitian matrix and partitionAinto A = R B B T ;
where R and T are square. A well known result due to Haynsworth [4] (see also
[5, Theorem 7.7.6]) is that A is positive denite if and only if R and the Schur
complement of Rin A, given by (A=R) = T ,B
R ,1
B, are positive denite. For
tridiagonal matrices, we now give a further proof of this fact based on Theorem 1.3 and in the spirit of the divide and conquer algorithmdue to Sorensen and Tang [9], but see also Gu and Eisenstat [3], in the sense that it is possible to reduce the problem of determining whether A is positive denite into the problem of, rst of
all, determining whether two smaller principal submatrices ofAare positive denite
which can be executed in parallel.
Theorem 2.1. LetA2C
n;nbe a Hermitian tridiagonal matrix and partition A into A = 2 6 4 A 1 a k ;k +1 e (k ) k 0 a k +1;k e (k )T k a k +1;k +1 a k +1;k +2 e (n,k ,1)T 1 0 a k +2;k +1 e (n,k ,1) 1 A 2 3 7 5 ;
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Positive Deniteness of Tridiagonal Matrices 95 where1<k<n,A 1 2C k ;k , and A 2 2C n,k ,1;n,k ,1
. ThenA is positive denite if
and only if the symmetric tridiagonal matrix
A 1 0 0 A 2 , (1=a k +1;k +1) " ja k ;k +1 j 2 e (k ) k e (k )T k a k ;k +1 a k +1;k +2 e (k ) k e (n,k ,1)T 1 a k +1;k a k +2;k +1 e (n,k ,1) 1 e (k )T k ja k +1;k +2 j 2 e (n,k ,1) 1 e (n,k ,1)T 1 # (1)
is positive denite. Putting
C 1 = A 1 , ja k ;k +1 j 2 a k +1;k +1 e (k ) k e (k )T k ; (2)
a necessary and sucient condition for the matrix in(1)to be positive denite is that
A 1 and
A
2 are positive denite and that the inequalities
1, ja k ;k +1 j 2 a k +1;k +1 , A ,1 1 k ;k > 0 (3) and 1, ja k +1;k +2 j 2+ ja k ;k +1 a k +1;k +2 j a k +1;k +1 2 (C ,1 1 ) k ;k ! , A ,1 2 1;1 > 0 (4) hold. In addition, if A 1 and A
2 are positive denite, then any one of the following
three conditions is also sucient forAto be positive denite.
(i)The matrices
A i , ja k ;k +1 j 2+ ja k +1;k +2 j 2 a k +1;k +1 I i ; i= 1;2; (5)
are positive denite,
(ii) 1 > 1 a k +1;k +1 ja k ;k +1 j 2 , A ,1 1 k ;k+ ja k +1;k +2 j 2 , A ,1 2 1;1 ; (6) (iii) 1 > 1 a k +1;k +1 ja k ;k +1 j 2 d 1 +ja k +1;k +2 j 2 d k +2 ; (7) whered 1 and d
k +2 are the smallest eigenvalues of of A
1 and A
2, respectively.
Proof. LetSbe the subspace ofC
nspanned by e
(n)
k +1. Then, by Theorem 1.3, Ais
positive denite if and only ifA
xyis positive denite for all
x2Sandy2S ?. Assume now thatx= [0 0::: 0x k +10 ::: 0] t 2S and y= [y 1 ::: y k 0 y k +2 ::: y n] t 2S ?. Then A xy = a k +1;k +1 a k +1;k x k +1 y k+ a k +1;k +2 x k +1 y k +2 a k ;k +1 y k x k +1+ a k +2;k +1 y k +2 x k +1 y Ay
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96 Mao-Ting Chien and Michael Neumann
is positive denite if and only if
a k +1;k +1 y Ay , (a k +1;k x k +1 y k+ a k +1;k +2 x k +1 y k +2)( a k ;k +1 y k x k +1+ a k +2;k +1) > 0: (8) Puty 0:= [ y 1 ::: y k y k +2 ::: y n] t 2C n,1. Then (8) becomes a k +1;k +1 y 0 A 1 0 0 A 2 y 0 , , ja k ;k +1 j 2 y k y k+ a k +1;k a k +1;k +2 y k y k +2 +a k +1;k a k +1;k +2 y k +2 y k+ ja k +1;k +2 j 2 y k +2 y k +2 = a k +1;k +1 y 0 A 1 0 0 A 2 y 0 ,y 0 " ja k ;k +1 j 2 e (k ) k e (k )T k a k ;k +1 a k +1;k +2 e (k ) k e (n,k ,1)T 1 a k +1;k a k +2;k +1 e (n,k ,1) 1 e (k ) T k ja k +1;k +2 j 2 e (n,k ,1) 1 e (n,k ,1)T 1 # y 0 >0
This proves the rst part of theorem. Namely, thatAis positive denite if and only
if the (n,1)(n,1) matrix in (1) is positive denite.
The equivalence of the positive deniteness of the matrix in (1) to the conditions (3) and (4) is obtained by considering the Schur complement of the matrixC
1 given
in (2) and by utilizing the fact that ifu;v2R `, then det, I+uv T = 1 +v T u: (9)
Suppose now thatA 1and
A
2are positive denite. We next establish (i). For this
purpose observe that the subtracted matrix in (1), which has rank 1, has eigenvalues 0 and, ja k ;k +1 j 2+ ja k +1;k +2 j 2 =a
k +1;k +1so that in the positive semidenite ordering, A 1 0 0 A 2 , 1 a k +1;k +1 ja k ;k +1 j 2 e k e T k a k ;k +1 a k +1;k +2 e k e T 1 a k +1;k a k +2;k +1 e 1 e T k ja k +1;k +2 j 2 e 1 e T 1 A 1 0 0 A 2 , ja k ;k +1 j 2+ ja k +1;k +2 j 2 a k +1;k +1 I n,1 :
Thus if (5) holds, then Ais clearly positive denite because then a submatrix ofA,
namelya
k ;k, as well as its Schur complement in
Agiven in (1) are positive denite.
To establish the validity of (ii), factor the rst matrix in (1) and compute the determinant of the sum of the identity matrix and the rank 1 matrix using the formula in (9). A simple inspection shows that condition (6) implies the positivity of that determinant.
Finally, condition (7) implies condition (6) because, by interlacing properties of symmetric matrices we have that,
A ,1 1 k ;k (1=d 1) >0 and , A ,1 2 1;1 (1=d k +1) >
0. This establishes (iii) and our proof is complete.
Next from Gershgorin theorem we know that a sucient condition for an Her-mitian matrixA= (a
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Positive Deniteness of Tridiagonal Matrices 97
a i;i > P n j=1;6=i ja i;j
j, i= 1;2;:::;n. However, what can be said if, for a tridiagonal
matrix, the condition fails to be satised for some rows? In this case, we obtain the following criteria.
Theorem 2.2. Let A = (a i;j)
2C n;n
be an Hermitian tridiagonal matrix with positive diagonal entries. ThenAis positive denite if one of the following conditions
is satised. (i) max i=1;3;::: a i;i , min i=1;3;::: a i;i + max i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i j p a i;i + max i=3;5;::: ja i,1;i j p a i;i 2 < min i=2;4;::: a i;i : (ii) min i=1;3;::: a ii= max i=1;3;::: a ii, and 2 max ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2: i= 1;3;::: < min i=1;3;::: a ii min i=2;4;::: a ii : (iii) min i=1;3;::: a ii 6 = max i=1;3;::: a ii, 2 max i=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2 , min i=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2 > max i=1;3;::: fa i;i g, min i=1;3;::: fa i;i g 2 ; and 2 max ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2: i= 1;3;::: < min i=1;3;::: a i;i min i=2;4;::: a i;i : (iv) min i=1;3;::: a i;i 6 = max i=1;3;::: a i;i, 2 max i=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2 , min i=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2 max i=1;3;::: fa i;i g, min i=1;3;::: fa i;i g 2 ; and 1 4 min i=1;3;::: a i;i , max i=1;3;::: a i;i 2 + max i=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+;i j 2+ min i=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2 + max1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2 ,min i=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2 maxi=1;3;::: a i;i ,min i=1;3;::: a i;i 2 < min i=1;3;::: fa i;i g) ( min i=2;4;::: fa i;i g :
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98 Mao-Ting Chien and Michael Neumann
Proof. We rst note that Bessel's inequality (see, e.g., [7, p.488]) implies that if
xandy aren{vectors which are orthogonal to each other, then jx Ay j 2 kAxk 2 2 ,jx Axj 2 : (10)
Next letSbe the subspace generated bye 1
;e 3
;e 5
;:::and observe that vectors x2S
andy2S
?have the form x= [x 10 x 30 x 5 ] T and y= [0y 20 y 4 ] T, respectively.
Then by Theorem 1.3,Ais positive denite if and only ifA
xy is positive denite for x2S andy2S ?, which is equivalent to x Axy Ay > jx Ay j 2 : (11)
Assume now that condition (i) is satised. We rst recall the following inequality. Letp
1 ;;p
nbe positive numbers. Then for any real numbers q 1 ;q 2 ;:::;q n, (q 1+ q 2+ +q n) =(p 1+ p 2+ +p n) maxfq i =p i: i= 1;2;:::;ng (12)
Then by (12) we have that
P i=1;3;::: ja i;i x i j 2 P i=1;3;::: a i;i jx i j 2 max i=1;3;::: a i;i ; (13) and P i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i x i+ a i+1;i+2 x i+2 j 2 P i=1;3;::: a i;i jx i j 2 s P i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i x i j 2 P i=1;3;::: a i;i jx i j 2 + s P i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i+2 x i+2 j 2 P i=1;3;::: a i;i jx i j 2 ! 2 s max i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i j 2 a i;i + s max i=3;5;::: ja i,1;i j 2 a i;i ! 2 = max i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i j p a i;i + max i=3;5;::: ja i,1;i j p a i;i 2 : (14)
From (13), (14), and the hypothesis we now obtain,
kAxk 2 2 ,jx Axj 2 x Ax = P i=1;3;::: ja i;i x i j 2 P i=1;3;::: a i;i jx i j 2+ P i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i x i+ a i+1;i+2 x i+2 j 2 P i=1;3;::: a ii jx i j 2 , X i=1;3;::: a ii jx i j 2 max i=1;3;::: fa i;i g+ max i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i j p a i;i + max i=3;5;::: ja i,1;i j p a i;i 2 , min i=1;3;::: fa i;i g < min i=2;4;::: fa i;i g X i=2;4;::: a i;i jy i j 2 = y Ay :
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Positive Deniteness of Tridiagonal Matrices 99
The result now follows from (11) and (10). Let us now set
1:= mini=1;3;::: fa i;i g; 1:= maxi=1;3;::: fa i;i g; 2:= mini=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2, and 2:= maxi=1;3;::: ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2. Then kAxk 2 ,jx Axj 2 = X i=1;3;::: ja i;i x i j 2 + X i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i x i+ a i+1;i+2 x i+2 j 2 , X i=1;3;::: a ii jx i j 2 X i=1;3;::: ja i;i x i j 2 , X i=1;3;::: a i;i jx i j 2 + 0 @ s X i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i j 2 jx i j 2+ s X i=1;3;::: ja i+1;i+2 j 2 jx i+2 j 2 1 A 2 X i=1;3;::: ja i;i x i j 2 , X i=1;3;::: a i;i jx i j 2+ 2 2 4 X i=1;3;::: (ja i,1;i j 2+ ja i+1;i j 2) jx i j 2 3 5 = t 2 1+ (1 ,t) 2 1 ,[t 1+ (1 ,t) 1] 2+ 2[ t 2+ (1 ,t) 2] = t(1,t)( 1 , 1) 2+ 2( t 2+ (1 ,t) 2) = ,( 1 , 1) 2 t 2+ ( 1 , 1) 2+ 2( 2 , 2) t+ 2 2 ; (15) for some t 2 [0;1]. If 1 =
1 then the value of (15) is 2( 2 , 2) t + 2 2 : If 1 6 =
1 then (15) assumes its maximum 14( 1 , 1) 2+ ( 2+ 2) + ( 2 , 2 1 , 1 )2 at t= 12 + 2 , 2 2( 1 , 1) 2 when 2( 2 , 2) ( 1 , 1)
2 and assumes it maximum 2 2 when 2( 2 , 2) >( 1 , 1) 2 :Therefore kAxk 2 2 ,jx Axj 2 8 > > > < > > > : 1 4( 1 , 1) 2+ ( 2+ 2) + 2 , 2 1,1 2 ; if 1 6 = 1 and2( 2 , 2) ( 1 , 1) 2 ; 2 2 ; if 1= 1 or 1 6 = 1 and2( 2 , 2) >( 1 , 1) 2 : (16)
If one of the conditions (ii), (iii), or (iv) is satised, then by (16),
kAxk 2 2 ,jx Axj 2 <( min i=1;3;::: a ii) ( min i=2;4;::: a ii) x Axy Ay :
Thus, by (11) and (10),Ais positive denite.
We remark that a similar result can be obtained by switching the odd and even indices in statement of theorem and in the proof.
Recall now that for a Hermitian matrixA2C n;n with eigenvalues 1 ::: n, the spread of A is 1 , n and is denoted by
Sp(A). For references on eigenvalue
spreads, see, e.g., Nylen and Tam [8], and Thompson [10].
Theorem 2.3. Let A = (a i;j)
2C n;n
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100 Mao-Ting Chien and Michael Neumann
positive diagonal entries. If
min i=1;3;::: fa i;i g min i=2;4;::: fa i;i g > n(n,1) 8 X i<j , ja i;i ,a j;j j 2+ 4 ja i;j j 2 ;
thenA is positive denite.
Proof. Let S be the subspace generated bye 1 ;e 3 ;:::. Forx 2 S and y 2S ?, y x= 0. By Remark 1 in Tsing [11] , W 0( A)fu Av ju;v2C n ; juj=jv j= 1; u v= 0g
is a circular disk centered at the origin of radius ( 1 , n) =2. Thus jy Axj 2 1 4( 1 , n) 2= 1 4 Sp(A) 2. By [8, Corollary 4], Sp(A) 2 n (n,2) 2 n X i=1 Sp(A[fig 0])2 ; (17)
But then from (17),
Sp(A) 2 n (n,2) 2 n,1 (n,3) 2 n,2 (n,4) 2 5 32 4 22 3 12 X i;j ((n,2)!)Sp(A[fi;jg]) 2 ;
from which we now get that 1 4Sp(A) 2 n(n,1) 8 X i<j , ja i;i ,a j;j j 2+ 4 ja i;j j 2 :
It now follows immediately from (11) and the fact that
x Axy Ay min i=1;3;::: fa i;i g min i=2;4;::: fa i;i g ;
thatA is positive denite.
3. Examples.
In this section, we give some examples to illustrate dierent cri-teria obtained in the paper.Example 3.1. Consider the matrix
A = 2 6 6 4 a 2 0 0 2 b 3 0 0 3 4 5 0 0 5 b 3 7 7 5 ;
where aand b are positive numbers. Table 1 lists the applicability for positive
de-niteness ofAwitha= 4 so that min i=1;3;:::
a
ii= max i=1;3;:::
a
ii, while Table 2 shows criteria
fora= 3:9 and min i=1;3;::: a ii 6 = max i=1;3;::: a ii.
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Positive Deniteness of Tridiagonal Matrices 101
Table1
Test for positive deniteness ofA(Example 3.1)
Applicability a=4, b=18 a=4, b=17 a=4, b=16.1
Theorem 2.2 (i) yes yes yes
Theorem 2.2 (ii) yes no no
Proposition 1.2 yes yes no
Gershgorin Theorem no no no
Table2
Test for positive deniteness ofA(Example 3.1)
Applicability a=3.9, b=18 a=3.9, b=17 a=3.9, b=16.2
Theorem 2.2 (i) yes yes yes
Theorem 2.2 (iii) yes no no
Proposition 1.2 yes yes no
Gershgorin Theorem no no no
Example 3.2. Consider the matrix
A = 2 4 10 0:5 0 0:5 8 8:5 0 8:5 10 3 5 :
It is easy to verify the principal minors ofAare positive,Ais positive denite. Table
3 compares three other criteria, and shows that the condition Theorem 2.3 works.
Table3
Test for positive deniteness ofA(Example 3.2)
Applicability
Theorem 2.3 yes
Proposition 1.2 no
Gershgorin Theorem no
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[2] Mao-Ting Chien. On the numerical range of tridiagonal operators. Linear Algebra and its Applications, 246:203{214, 1996.
[3] Ming Gu and Stanley C. Eisenstat. A divide-and-conquer algorithm for the symmetric tridi-agonal eigenproblem. SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications, 16:172{191, 1995.
[4] Emilie V. Haynsworth. Determination of the inertia of a partitioned Hermitian matrix.Linear Algebra and its Application, 1:73{81, 1968.
[5] Roger A. Horn and Charles R. Johnson. Matrix Analysis. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1985.
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102 Mao-Ting Chien and Michael Neumann
[6] Charles R. Johnson, Michael Neumann, and Michael J. Tsatsomeros. Conditions for the posi-tivity of determinants.Linear and Multilinear Algebra, 40:241{248, 1996.
[7] Ben Noble and James W.Daniel. Applied Linear Algebra. Prentice{Hall, Englewood Clis, New Jersey, 1988.
[8] Peter Nylen and Tin-Yau Tam. On the spread of a Hermitian matrix and a conjecture of Thompson.Linear and Multilinear Algebra, 37:3{11, 1994.
[9] Danny C. Sorensen and Pink-Tak-Peter Tang. On the orthogonality of eigenvectors computed by divide{and{conquer techniques.SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, 28:1752{1775, 1991.
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[11] Nam-Kiu, Tsing. The constrained bilinear form and theC-numerical range. Linear Algebra