If square matrices and of the same order over are both diagonalizable, which of the following statements is/are true?
Ⅰ. If and are simultaneously diagonalizable, that is, there exists a similarity matrix such that and are both diagonal, then and commute.
Ⅱ. If and commute, then they can be simultaneously diagonalizable.
Bonus: Generalize this for any number of matrices.
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Statement Ⅰ is true since diagonal matrices commute.
Statement Ⅱ is true: Perform a similarity transformation on both A and B that diagonalizes A (but not necessarily B ) and group together any repeated eigenvalues of A . If μ 1 , μ 2 , … , μ d are the distinct eigenvalues of A and n 1 , n 2 , … , n d are their respective multiplicities, then we may assume that A = ⎣ ⎢ ⎢ ⎡ μ 1 I n 1 0 μ 2 I n 2 ⋱ 0 μ d I n d ⎦ ⎥ ⎥ ⎤ , μ i = μ j , if i = j Since A B = B A , we can see, by multiplication of block matrix, that B = ⎣ ⎢ ⎢ ⎡ B 1 0 B 2 ⋱ 0 B d ⎦ ⎥ ⎥ ⎤ , each B i ∈ M n i ( C ) is block diagonal conformal to A . Since B is diagonalizable, we can see, by induction, that each B i is diagonalizable. Let T i ∈ M n i ( C ) be nonsingular and such that T i − 1 B i T i is diagonal for each i = 1 , 2 , … d . Let T = ⎣ ⎢ ⎢ ⎡ T 1 0 T 2 ⋱ 0 T d ⎦ ⎥ ⎥ ⎤ Then T i − 1 μ i I n i T i = μ i I n i , so T − 1 A T = A and T − 1 B T are both diagonal.
Generalization for any number of matrices could be:
References
[1] Roger A. Horn and Charles R. Johnson, Matrix analysis , Cambridge University Press, 2013.