Related papers: Almost commuting unitaries with spectral gap are n…

A question going back to Halmos asks when two approximately commuting matrices of a certain kind are close to exactly commuting matrices of the same kind. It has long been known that there is a winding number obstruction for approximately…

The behavior of fermionic systems depends on the geometry of the system and the symmetry class of the Hamiltonian and observables. Almost commuting matrices arise from band-projected position observables in such systems. One expects the…

We show that almost commuting real orthogonal matrices are uniformly close to exactly commuting real orthogonal matrices. We prove the same for symplectic unitary matrices. This is in contrast to the general complex case, where not all…

Suppose two Hermitian matrices $A,B$ almost commute ($\Vert [A,B] \Vert \leq \delta$). Are they close to a commuting pair of Hermitian matrices, $A',B'$, with $\Vert A-A' \Vert,\Vert B-B'\Vert \leq \epsilon$? A theorem of H. Lin shows that…

We show that if A_1, A_2, ... , A_n are square matrices, each of them is either unitary or self-adjoint, and they almost commute with respect to the rank metric, then one can find commuting matrices B_1, B_2, ... , B_n that are close to the…

For the almost Mathieu operator with a small coupling constant, for a series of spectral gaps, we describe the asymptotic locations of the gaps and get lower bounds for their lengths. The results are obtained by analysing a monodromy…

Almost-commuting matrices with respect to the normalized Hilbert-Schmidt norm are considered. Normal almost commuting matrices are proved to be near commuting.

Let $A$ and $B$ be compact operators over a topological space $X$ and suppose that these operators are normal and have same distinct eigenvalues at each point. By obstruction theory, we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for $A$…

We study the relation between approximate joint diagonalization of self-adjoint matrices and the norm of their commutator, and show that almost commuting self-adjoint matrices are almost jointly diagonalizable by a unitary matrix.

A unitary family is a family of unitary operators $U(x)$ acting on a finite dimensional hermitian vector space, depending analytically on a real parameter $x$. It is monotone if $\frac1i U'(x)U(x)^{-1}$ is a positive operator for each $x$.…

We explore the relationship between approximate symmetries of a gapped Hamiltonian and the structure of its ground space. We start by showing that approximate symmetry operators---unitary operators whose commutators with the Hamiltonian…

The_commuting variety_ is the pairs of NxN matrices (X,Y) such that XY = YX. We introduce the_diagonal commutator scheme_, {(X,Y) : XY-YX is diagonal}, which we prove to be a reduced complete intersection, one component of which is the…

For a $n\times n$ unitary matrix $u=e^z$ with $z$ skew-Hermitian, the angles of $u$ are the arguments of its spectrum, i.e. the spectrum of $-iz$. For $1\le m\le n$, we show that $s_m(t)$, the sum of the first $m$ angles of the path…

Macroscopic observables in a quantum spin system are given by sequences of spatial means of local elements $\frac{1}{2n+1}\sum_{j=-n}^n\gamma_j(A_{i}), \; n\in{\mathbb N},\; i=1,...,m$ in a UHF algebra. One of their properties is that they…

Let A and B be normal matrices with coefficients that are continuous complex-valued functions on a topological space X that has the homotopy type of a CW complex, and suppose these matrices have the same distinct eigenvalues at each point…

Let $R$ be a unitary operator whose spectrum is the circle. We show that the set of unitaries $U$ which essentially commute with $R$ (i.e., $[U,R]\equiv UR-RU$ is compact) is path-connected. Moreover, we also calculate the set of…

Let X_N= (X_1^(N), ..., X_p^(N)) be a family of N-by-N independent, normalized random matrices from the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble. We state sufficient conditions on matrices Y_N =(Y_1^(N), ..., Y_q^(N)), possibly random but independent of…

We construct $R$-matrices (with a multidimensional spectral parameter) that include additive as well as non-additive parameters. They satisfy the colored Yang-Baxter equation. The solutions depend on a set of commuting operators. They…

Two matrices $A$ and $B$ are called unitary (resp. orthogonal) equivalent if $AU=VB$ for two unitary (resp. orthogonal) matrices $U$ and $V$. Using trace identities, criteria are given for simultaneous unitary, orthogonal or complex…

Whether an almost-commuting pair of operators must be close to a commuting pair is a central question in operator and matrix theory. We investigate this problem for pairs of $C^*$-subalgebras $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ of…