Showing posts with label properties of eigenvalues preliminaries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label properties of eigenvalues preliminaries. Show all posts

Sunday, 13 January 2013

Eigenmatrices, Decompositions and Conjugation(Matrices)

 The definition of eigenvalues and eigenvectors states that for a matrix M, we can find pairs of vectors (v) and scalars (λ) that satisfy the following rule:
Mv = vλ

We can extend this concept to an eigenmatrix by combining all the n eigenvectors into an n x n matrix that we will call V, and replacing λ with a diagonal matrix D.

Matrix Trace, Determinants and Eigenvalues

This is the start of a quick series of posts showing some powerful properties (and proofs) of matrix eigenvalues. It is assumed that the reader can calculate eigenvectors/values.

However, the series refers to some basic algebra and matrix properties that, while used everywhere, usually don't have accessible or comprehensive  proofs available on the Internet (You can find them in good linear algebra textbooks). It is also a good place to show some neat tricks for sagemath.
There are better and more comprehensive proofs out there, but these are a good start.

We will start today with matrix traces and determinants, and their relationship to matrix eigenvalues. Basically we will be proving that for any n x n matrix, the eigenvalues add up to the sum of the diagonal elements, and multiply up to the determinant of the matrix.