Unitary completions of complex symmetric and skew symmetric matrices.
We show that any compact semigroup of n × n matrices is similar to a semigroup bounded by √n. We give examples to show that this bound is best possible and consider the effect of the minimal rank of matrices in the semigroup on this bound.
We show that any compact semigroup of positive n × n matrices is similar (via a positive diagonal similarity) to a semigroup bounded by √n. We give examples to show this bound is best possible. We also consider the effect of additional conditions on the semigroup and obtain improved bounds in some cases.
We present a lower and an upper bound for the second smallest eigenvalue of Laplacian matrices in terms of the averaged minimal cut of weighted graphs. This is used to obtain an upper bound for the real parts of the non-maximal eigenvalues of irreducible nonnegative matrices. The result can be applied to Markov chains.