The class of sparse companion matrices was recently characterized in terms of unit Hessenberg matrices. We determine which sparse companion matrices have the lowest bandwidth, that is, we characterize which sparse companion matrices are permutationally similar to a pentadiagonal matrix and describe how to find the permutation involved. In the process, we determine which of the Fiedler companion matrices are permutationally similar to a pentadiagonal matrix. We also describe how to find a Fiedler...

For a rank-$1$ matrix $A={𝐚𝐛}^t$, we define the perimeter of $A$ as the number of nonzero entries in both $𝐚$ and $𝐛$. We characterize the linear operators which preserve the rank and perimeter of rank-$1$ matrices over semifields. That is, a linear operator $T$ preserves the rank and perimeter of rank-$1$ matrices over semifields if and only if it has the form $T\left(A\right)=UAV$, or $T\left(A\right)=U{A}^{t}V$ with some invertible matrices U and V.

Let ${\mathbb{Z}}_{+}$ be the semiring of all nonnegative integers and $A$ an $m\times n$ matrix over ${\mathbb{Z}}_{+}$. The rank of $A$ is the smallest $k$ such that $A$ can be factored as an $m\times k$ matrix times a $k\times n$ matrix. The isolation number of $A$ is the maximum number of nonzero entries in $A$ such that no two are in any row or any column, and no two are in a $2\times 2$ submatrix of all nonzero entries. We have that the isolation number of $A$ is a lower bound of the rank of $A$. For $A$ with isolation number $k$, we investigate the possible values of the rank of $A$...