Sums of two nilpotent quaternionic matrices

Abstract

Let $\mathcal{Q}$ be a quaternion division algebra over a field, and $n\ge 2$ be an integer. In a recent article, de la Cruz et al have proved that every $n$-by-$n$ matrix with entries in $\mathcal{Q}$ and pure quaternionic trace is the sum of three nilpotent matrices, and they have shown that some are not the sum of two nilpotent matrices. Here, we give a simple characterization of the square matrices with entries in $\mathcal{Q}$ that are the sum of two nilpotent ones. When $n\ge 3$, the special cases involve the scalar matrices and their perturbations by rank $1$ matrices, as well as the very special case of $3$-by-$3$ unispectral diagonalisable matrices.

28 pages (v2 : fixed some minor typos)