On the computations of the Cullis' determinant

Abstract

The Cullis' determinant is a generalization of the ordinary determinant for rectangular matrices. It is defined as the alternating sum of maximal minors of a given matrix. In this paper we express the Cullis' determinant of a matrix $X$ as the Pfaffian of the matrix obtained from $X$ by matrix multiplication and transposition. Relying on this result, we present an efficient polynomial-time division-free algorithm for calculating the Cullis' determinant of a given matrix with entries belonging to the commutative ring. We provide an asymptotical analysis of its arithmetical complexity in comparison to the definition-based algorithm. In addition, we derive formulas for horizontal expansion of the Cullis' determinant which complements the existing formula for Laplace expansion along the columns of a matrix.