## Problem 69

Let $F$ and $H$ be an $n\times n$ matrices satisfying the relation
$HF-FH=-2F.$

(a) Find the trace of the matrix $F$.

(b) Let $\lambda$ be an eigenvalue of $H$ and let $\mathbf{v}$ be an eigenvector corresponding to $\lambda$. Show that there exists an positive integer $N$ such that $F^N\mathbf{v}=\mathbf{0}$.

## Problem 68

Let $H$ and $E$ be $n \times n$ matrices satisfying the relation
$HE-EH=2E.$ Let $\lambda$ be an eigenvalue of the matrix $H$ such that the real part of $\lambda$ is the largest among the eigenvalues of $H$.
Let $\mathbf{x}$ be an eigenvector corresponding to $\lambda$. Then prove that
$E\mathbf{x}=\mathbf{0}.$

## Problem 67

Answer the following questions regarding eigenvalues of a real matrix.

(a) True or False. If each entry of an $n \times n$ matrix $A$ is a real number, then the eigenvalues of $A$ are all real numbers.
(b) Find the eigenvalues of the matrix
$B=\begin{bmatrix} -2 & -1\\ 5& 2 \end{bmatrix}.$

(The Ohio State University, Linear Algebra Exam)

## Problem 66

Consider the matrix
$A=\begin{bmatrix} 1 & 2 & 1 \\ 2 &5 &4 \\ 1 & 1 & 0 \end{bmatrix}.$

(a) Calculate the inverse matrix $A^{-1}$. If you think the matrix $A$ is not invertible, then explain why.

(b) Are the vectors
$\mathbf{A}_1=\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 2 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix}, \mathbf{A}_2=\begin{bmatrix} 2 \\ 5 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix}, \text{ and } \mathbf{A}_3=\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 4 \\ 0 \end{bmatrix}$ linearly independent?

(c) Write the vector $\mathbf{b}=\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 1 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix}$ as a linear combination of $\mathbf{A}_1$, $\mathbf{A}_2$, and $\mathbf{A}_3$.

(The Ohio State University, Linear Algebra Exam)

## Problem 65

Consider the system of linear equations
\begin{align*}
x_1&= 2, \\
-2x_1 + x_2 &= 3, \\
5x_1-4x_2 +x_3 &= 2
\end{align*}

(a) Find the coefficient matrix and its inverse matrix.

(b) Using the inverse matrix, solve the system of linear equations.

(The Ohio State University, Linear Algebra Exam)

## Sylow’s Theorem (Summary)

In this post we review Sylow’s theorem and as an example we solve the following problem.

## Problem 64

Show that a group of order $200$ has a normal Sylow $5$-subgroup.

## Problem 63

Let $A$ be an $n\times n$ real symmetric matrix whose eigenvalues are all non-negative real numbers.

Show that there is an $n \times n$ real matrix $B$ such that $B^2=A$.

## Problem 62

Let $T: \R^n \to \R^m$ be a linear transformation.
Suppose that $S=\{\mathbf{x}_1, \mathbf{x}_2,\dots, \mathbf{x}_k\}$ is a subset of $\R^n$ such that $\{T(\mathbf{x}_1), T(\mathbf{x}_2), \dots, T(\mathbf{x}_k) \}$ is a linearly independent subset of $\R^m$.

Prove that the set $S$ is linearly independent.

## Problem 61

Let $V$ and $W$ be subspaces of $\R^n$ such that $V \cap W =\{\mathbf{0}\}$ and $\dim(V)+\dim(W)=n$.

(a) If $\mathbf{v}+\mathbf{w}=\mathbf{0}$, where $\mathbf{v}\in V$ and $\mathbf{w}\in W$, then show that $\mathbf{v}=\mathbf{0}$ and $\mathbf{w}=\mathbf{0}$.

(b) If $B_1$ is a basis for the subspace $V$ and $B_2$ is a basis for the subspace $W$, then show that the union $B_1\cup B_2$ is a basis for $R^n$.

(c) If $\mathbf{x}$ is in $\R^n$, then show that $\mathbf{x}$ can be written in the form $\mathbf{x}=\mathbf{v}+\mathbf{w}$, where $\mathbf{v}\in V$ and $\mathbf{w} \in W$.

(d) Show that the representation obtained in part (c) is unique.

## Problem 60

Let $T: \R^3 \to \R^3$ be the linear transformation given by orthogonal projection to the line spanned by $\begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 2 \\ 2 \end{bmatrix}$.

(a) Find a formula for $T(\mathbf{x})$ for $\mathbf{x}\in \R^3$.

(b) Find a basis for the image subspace of $T$.

(c) Find a basis for the kernel subspace of $T$.

(d) Find the $3 \times 3$ matrix for $T$ with respect to the standard basis for $\R^3$.

(e) Find a basis for the orthogonal complement of the kernel of $T$. (The orthogonal complement is the subspace of all vectors perpendicular to a given subspace, in this case, the kernel.)

(f) Find a basis for the orthogonal complement of the image of $T$.

(g) What is the rank of $T$?

(Johns Hopkins University Exam)

## Problem 59

Answer the following two questions with justification.

(a) Does there exist a $2 \times 2$ matrix $A$ with $A^3=O$ but $A^2 \neq O$? Here $O$ denotes the $2 \times 2$ zero matrix.

(b) Does there exist a $3 \times 3$ real matrix $B$ such that $B^2=A$ where
$A=\begin{bmatrix} 1 & -1 & 0 \\ -1 &2 &-1 \\ 0 & -1 & 1 \end{bmatrix}\,\,\,\,?$

(Princeton University Linear Algebra Exam)

## Problem 58

Let $A$ be an $n \times n$ matrix over a field $K$. Prove that
$\rk(A^2)-\rk(A^3)\leq \rk(A)-\rk(A^2),$ where $\rk(B)$ denotes the rank of a matrix $B$.

(University of California, Berkeley, Qualifying Exam)

## Problem 57

Let $A$ and $B$ be $n \times n$ matrices.

Prove that the characteristic polynomials for the matrices $AB$ and $BA$ are the same.

## Problem 56

Suppose that $A$ is an $n\times n$ singular matrix.
Prove that for sufficiently small $\epsilon>0$, the matrix $A-\epsilon I$ is nonsingular, where $I$ is the $n \times n$ identity matrix.

## Problem 55

Let $A$ and $B$ are $n \times n$ matrices with real entries.
Assume that $A+B$ is invertible. Then show that
$A(A+B)^{-1}B=B(A+B)^{-1}A.$

(University of California, Berkeley Qualifying Exam)

## Problem 54

Determine all the conjugacy classes of the dihedral group
$D_{8}=\langle r,s \mid r^4=s^2=1, sr=r^{-1}s\rangle$ of order $8$.

## Problem 53

Let $D_8$ be the dihedral group of order $8$.
Using the generators and relations, we have
$D_{8}=\langle r,s \mid r^4=s^2=1, sr=r^{-1}s\rangle.$

(a) Let $A$ be the subgroup of $D_8$ generated by $r$, that is, $A=\{1,r,r^2,r^3\}$.
Prove that the centralizer $C_{D_8}(A)=A$.

(b) Show that the normalizer $N_{D_8}(A)=D_8$.

(c) Show that the center $Z(D_8)=\langle r^2 \rangle=\{1,r^2\}$, the subgroup generated by $r^2$.

## Problem 52

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Let $D_{2n}$ be the dihedral group of order $2n$. Using the generators and the relations, the dihedral group $D_{2n}$ is given by
$D_{2n}=\langle r,s \mid r^n=s^2=1, sr=r^{-1}s\rangle.$ Put $\theta=2 \pi/n$.

(a) Prove that the matrix $\begin{bmatrix} \cos \theta & -\sin \theta\\ \sin \theta& \cos \theta \end{bmatrix}$ is the matrix representation of the linear transformation $T$ which rotates the $x$-$y$ plane about the origin in a counterclockwise direction by $\theta$ radians.

(b) Let $\GL_2(\R)$ be the group of all $2 \times 2$ invertible matrices with real entries. Show that the map $\rho: D_{2n} \to \GL_2(\R)$ defined on the generators by
$\rho(r)=\begin{bmatrix} \cos \theta & -\sin \theta\\ \sin \theta& \cos \theta \end{bmatrix} \text{ and } \rho(s)=\begin{bmatrix} 0 & 1\\ 1& 0 \end{bmatrix}$ extends to a homomorphism of $D_{2n}$ into $\GL_2(\R)$.

(c) Determine whether the homomorphism $\rho$ in part (b) is injective and/or surjective.

## Problem 51

Let $A$ and $B$ be an $n \times n$ matrices.
Suppose that all the eigenvalues of $A$ are distinct and the matrices $A$ and $B$ commute, that is $AB=BA$.

Then prove that each eigenvector of $A$ is an eigenvector of $B$.

(It could be that each eigenvector is an eigenvector for distinct eigenvalues.)

## Problem 50

Let
$A=\begin{bmatrix} \frac{1}{7} & \frac{3}{7} & \frac{3}{7} \\ \frac{3}{7} &\frac{1}{7} &\frac{3}{7} \\ \frac{3}{7} & \frac{3}{7} & \frac{1}{7} \end{bmatrix}$ be $3 \times 3$ matrix. Find

$\lim_{n \to \infty} A^n.$

(Nagoya University Linear Algebra Exam)