English

Nonnegativity for hafnians of certain matrices

Quantum Physics 2021-02-26 v2 Mathematical Physics Combinatorics math.MP Number Theory

Abstract

We show that a complex symmetric matrix of the form A(Y,B)=[YBBY],A(Y,B) = \begin{bmatrix}Y & B\\ B^\top & \overline{Y} \end{bmatrix}, where BB is Hermitian positive semidefinite, has a nonnegative hafnian. These are positive scalar multiples of matrices A(Y,B)A(Y,B) that are encodable in a Gaussian boson sampler. Further, the hafnian of this matrix is non-decreasing in BB in the sense that hafA(Y,L)hafA(Y,B)\mathrm{haf}A(Y,L) \ge \mathrm{haf}A(Y,B) if LBL \succeq B.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1811.10342,
  title  = {Nonnegativity for hafnians of certain matrices},
  author = {Kamil Bradler and Shmuel Friedland and Robert Israel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.10342},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

Close to the published version in Linear and Multilinear Algebra