Stahl's theorem

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In matrix analysis Stahl's theorem is a theorem proved in 2011 by Herbert Stahl concerning Laplace transforms for special matrix functions. [1] It originated in 1975 as the Bessis-Moussa-Villani (BMV) conjecture by Daniel Bessis, Pierre Moussa, and Marcel Villani. [2] In 2004 Elliott H. Lieb and Robert Seiringer gave two important reformulations of the BMV conjecture. [3] In 2015, Alexandre Eremenko gave a simplified proof of Stahl's theorem. [4]

In 2023, Otte Heinävaara proved a structure theorem for Hermitian matrices introducing tracial joint spectral measures that implies Stahl's theorem as a corollary. [5]

Statement of the theorem

Let denote the trace of a matrix. If and are Hermitian matrices and is positive semidefinite, define , for all real . Then can be represented as the Laplace transform of a non-negative Borel measure on . In other words, for all real ,

(t) = ,

for some non-negative measure depending upon and . [6]

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References

  1. Stahl, Herbert R. (2013). "Proof of the BMV conjecture". Acta Mathematica. 211 (2): 255–290. arXiv: 1107.4875 . doi:10.1007/s11511-013-0104-z.
  2. Bessis, D.; Moussa, P.; Villani, M. (1975). "Monotonic converging variational approximations to the functional integrals in quantum statistical mechanics". Journal of Mathematical Physics. 16 (11): 2318–2325. Bibcode:1975JMP....16.2318B. doi: 10.1063/1.522463 .
  3. Lieb, Elliott; Seiringer, Robert (2004). "Equivalent forms of the Bessis-Moussa-Villani conjecture". Journal of Statistical Physics. 115 (1–2): 185–190. arXiv: math-ph/0210027 . Bibcode:2004JSP...115..185L. doi:10.1023/B:JOSS.0000019811.15510.27.
  4. Eremenko, A. È. (2015). "Herbert Stahl's proof of the BMV conjecture". Sbornik: Mathematics. 206 (1): 87–92. arXiv: 1312.6003 . Bibcode:2015SbMat.206...87E. doi:10.1070/SM2015v206n01ABEH004447.
  5. Heinävaara, Otte (2023). "Tracial joint spectral measures". arXiv: 2310.03227 [math.FA].
  6. Clivaz, Fabien (2016). Stahl's Theorem (aka BMV Conjecture): Insights and Intuition on its Proof. Operator Theory: Advances and Applications. Vol. 254. pp. 107–117. arXiv: 1702.06403 . doi:10.1007/978-3-319-29992-1_6. ISBN   978-3-319-29990-7. ISSN   0255-0156.