Smith meets Smith: Smith normal form of Smith matrix

摘要

In 1861, Henry John Stephen Smith [H.J.S. Smith, On systems of linear indeterminate equations and congruences, Philos. Trans. Royal Soc. London. 151 (1861), pp. 293-326] published famous results concerning solving systems of linear equations. The research on Smith normal form and its applications started and continues. In 1876, Smith [H.J.S. Smith, On the value of a certain arithmetical determinant, Proc. London Math. Soc. 7 (1875/76), pp. 208-212] calculated the determinant of the n × n matrix ((i, j)), having the greatest common divisor (GCD) of i and j as its ij entry. Since that, many results concerning the determinants and related topics of GCD matrices, LCM matrices, meet matrices and join matrices have been published in the literature. In this article these two important research branches developed by Smith, in 1861 and in 1876, meet for the first time. The main purpose of this article is to determine the Smith normal form of the Smith matrix ((i, j)). We do this: we determine the Smith normal form of GCD matrices defined on factor closed sets.