A variant of \v{S}emrl's preserver theorem for singular matrices

TL;DR

This paper characterizes spectrum-shrinking maps on matrices of rank at most k, extending Semrl's preserver theorem to singular matrices, and explores the structure and limitations of such maps under various conditions.

Contribution

It provides a new variant of Semrl's preserver theorem for matrices of bounded rank, including singular matrices, and analyzes spectrum-shrinking maps' structure and embedding properties.

Findings

Spectrum-shrinking maps for k > n/2 either preserve characteristic polynomials or are nilpotent.

Existence of real analytic embeddings of low-rank matrices into nilpotent matrices for large n.

Characterization of injective spectrum-shrinking maps as conjugations or transpose conjugations.

Abstract

For positive integers $1 \leq k \leq n$ let $M_n$ be the algebra of all $n \times n$ complex matrices and $M_n^{\le k}$ its subset consisting of all matrices of rank at most $k$. We first show that whenever $k>\frac{n}{2}$, any continuous spectrum-shrinking map $\phi : M_n^{\le k} \to M_n$ (i.e. $\mathrm{sp}(\phi(X)) \subseteq \mathrm{sp}(X)$ for all $X \in M_n^{\le k}$) either preserves characteristic polynomials or takes only nilpotent values. Moreover, for any $k$ there exists a real analytic embedding of $M_n^{\le k}$ into the space of $n\times n$ nilpotent matrices for all sufficiently large $n$. This phenomenon cannot occur when $\phi$ is injective and either $k > n - \sqrt{n}$ or the image of $\phi$ is contained in $M_n^{\le k}$. We then establish a main result of the paper -- a variant of \v{S}emrl's preserver theorem for $M_n^{\le k}$: if $n \geq 3$, any injective continuous map $\phi :M_n^{\le k} \to M_n^{\le k}$ that preserves commutativity and shrinks spectrum is of the form $\phi(\cdot)=T(\cdot)T^{-1}$ or $\phi(\cdot)=T(\cdot)^tT^{-1}$, for some invertible matrix $T\in M_n$. Moreover, when $k=n-1$, which corresponds to the set of singular $n\times n$ matrices, this result extends to maps $\phi$ which take values in $M_n$. Finally, we discuss the indispensability of assumptions in our main result.