Two linear transformations each tridiagonal with respect to an eigenbasis of the other: comments on the split decomposition

摘要

Let K denote a field and let V denote a vector space over K with finite positive dimension. We consider an ordered pair of linear transformations A : V -> V and A* : V -> V that satisfy both conditions below:(i) There exists a basis for V with respect to which the matrix representing A is irreducible tridiagonal and the matrix representing A* is diagonal. (ii) There exists a basis for V with respect to which the matrix representing A* is irreducible tridiagonal and the matrix representing A is diagonal.We call such a pair a Leonardpair on V. Referring to the above Leonard pair, it is known there exists a decomposition of V into a direct sum of one-dimensional subspaces, on which A acts in a lower bidiagonal fashion and A* acts in an upper bidiagonal fashion. This is called the split decomposition. In this paper, we give two characterizations of a Leonard pair that involve the split decomposition. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.