Structured Random Matrices

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in understanding the spectral properties of structured random matrices, focusing on spectral norm inequalities for Gaussian matrices and highlighting open problems in the field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of new results, methods, and open questions related to the spectral analysis of structured random matrices.

Findings

Sharp spectral norm inequalities for Gaussian matrices

Insights into spectral properties of sparse and patterned matrices

Identification of open problems in structured random matrix theory

Abstract

Random matrix theory is a well-developed area of probability theory that has numerous connections with other areas of mathematics and its applications. Much of the literature in this area is concerned with matrices that possess many exact or approximate symmetries, such as matrices with i.i.d. entries, for which precise analytic results and limit theorems are available. Much less well understood are matrices that are endowed with an arbitrary structure, such as sparse Wigner matrices or matrices whose entries possess a given variance pattern. The challenge in investigating such structured random matrices is to understand how the given structure of the matrix is reflected in its spectral properties. This chapter reviews a number of recent results, methods, and open problems in this direction, with a particular emphasis on sharp spectral norm inequalities for Gaussian random matrices.