English

On the characteristic polynomial of a supertropical adjoint matrix

Combinatorics 2015-10-09 v1

Abstract

Let χ(A)\chi(A) denote the characteristic polynomial of a matrix AA over a field; a standard result of linear algebra states that χ(A1)\chi(A^{-1}) is the reciprocal polynomial of χ(A)\chi(A). More formally, the condition χn(X)χk(X1)=χnk(X)\chi^n(X) \chi^k(X^{-1})=\chi^{n-k}(X) holds for any invertible n×nn\times n matrix XX over a field, where χi(X)\chi^i(X) denotes the coefficient of λni\lambda^{n-i} in the characteristic polynomial det(λIX)\det(\lambda I-X). We confirm a recent conjecture of Niv by proving the tropical analogue of this result.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.1510.02143,
  title  = {On the characteristic polynomial of a supertropical adjoint matrix},
  author = {Yaroslav Shitov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1510.02143},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

note, 3 pages