Spectra of Convex Hulls of Matrix Groups

Abstract

The still-unsolved problem of determining the set of eigenvalues realized by $n$-by-$n$ doubly stochastic matrices, those matrices with row sums and column sums equal to $1$, has attracted much attention in the last century. This problem is somewhat algebraic in nature, due to a result of Birkhoff demonstrating that the set of doubly stochastic matrices is the convex hull of the permutation matrices. Here we are interested in a general matrix group $G\subseteq G{L}_n(\mathbb{C})$ and the hull spectrum $\text{HS}(G)$ of eigenvalues realized by convex combinations of elements of $G$. We show that hull spectra of matrix groups share many nice properties. Moreover, we give bounds on the hull spectra of matrix groups, determine $\text{HS}(G)$ exactly for important classes of matrix groups, and study the hull spectra of representations of abstract groups.

19 pages. This work was completed at the 2019 Matrix Analysis REU at the College of William & Mary