A constructive approach to Schaeffer's conjecture

J.J. Schaeffer proved that for $any$ induced matrix norm and $any$ invertible $T=T(n)$ the inequality $$\left|\det T\right|\left\Vert T^{-1}\right\Vert \leq\mathcal{S}\left\Vert T\right\Vert ^{n-1}$$ holds with $\mathcal{S}=\mathcal{S}(n)\leq\sqrt{en}$. He conjectured that the best $\mathcal{S}$ was actually bounded. This was rebutted by Gluskin-Meyer-Pajor and subsequent contributions by J. Bourgain and H. Queffelec that successively improved lower estimates on $\mathcal{S}$. These articles rely on a link to the theory of power sums of complex numbers. A probabilistic or number theoretic analysis of such inequalities is employed to prove the existence of $T$ with growing $\mathcal{S}$ but the explicit construction of such $T$ remains an open task. In this article we propose a constructive approach to Schaeffer's conjecture that is not related to power sum theory. As a consequence we present an explicit sequence of Toeplitz matrices with singleton spectrum $\{\lambda\}\subset\mathbb{D}-\{0\}$ such that $\mathcal{S}\geq c(\lambda)\sqrt{n}$. Our framework naturally extends to provide lower estimates on the resolvent $\left\Vert (\zeta-T)^{-1}\right\Vert$ when $\zeta\neq0$. We also obtain new upper estimates on the resolvent when the spectrum is given. This yields new upper bounds on $\left\Vert T^{-1}\right\Vert$ in terms of the eigenvalues of $T$ which slightly refine Schaeffer's original estimate.