Majorization for Changes in Angles Between Subspaces, Ritz Values, and Graph Laplacian Spectra

  • Authors:
  • Andrew V. Knyazev;Merico E. Argentati

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Many inequality relations between real vector quantities can be succinctly expressed as “weak (sub)majorization” relations using the symbol ${\prec}_{w}$. We explain these ideas and apply them in several areas, angles between subspaces, Ritz values, and graph Laplacian spectra, which we show are all surprisingly related. Let $\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Y})$ be the vector of principal angles in nondecreasing order between subspaces ${\mathcal X}$ and ${\mathcal Y}$ of a finite dimensional space ${\mathcal H}$ with a scalar product. We consider the change in principal angles between subspaces ${\mathcal X}$ and ${\mathcal Z}$, where we let ${\mathcal X}$ be perturbed to give ${\mathcal Y}$. We measure the change using weak majorization. We prove that $|\cos^2\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Z})-\cos^2\Theta({\mathcal Y},{\mathcal Z})| {\prec}_{w} \sin\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Y})$, and give similar results for differences of cosines, i.e., $|\cos\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Z})-\cos\Theta({\mathcal Y},{\mathcal Z})| {\prec}_{w} \sin\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Y})$, and of sines and sines squared, assuming $\dim {\mathcal X} = \dim {\mathcal Y}$. We observe that $\cos^2\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Z})$ can be interpreted as a vector of Ritz values, where the Rayleigh-Ritz method is applied to the orthogonal projector on ${\mathcal Z}$ using ${\mathcal X}$ as a trial subspace. Thus, our result for the squares of cosines can be viewed as a bound on the change in the Ritz values of an orthogonal projector. We then extend it to prove a general result for Ritz values for an arbitrary Hermitian operator $A$, not necessarily a projector: let $\Lambda(P_{{\mathcal X}}A|_{{\mathcal X}})$ be the vector of Ritz values in nonincreasing order for $A$ on a trial subspace ${\mathcal X}$, which is perturbed to give another trial subspace ${\mathcal Y}$; then $| \Lambda(P_{{\mathcal X}}A|_{{\mathcal X}})- \Lambda(P_{{\mathcal Y}}A|_{{\mathcal Y}})|\prec_w (\lmax-\lmin)~\sin\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Y})$, where the constant is the difference between the largest and the smallest eigenvalues of $A$. This establishes our conjecture that the root two factor in our earlier estimate may be eliminated. Our present proof is based on a classical but rarely used technique of extending a Hermitian operator in ${\mathcal H}$ to an orthogonal projector in the “double” space ${\mathcal H}^2$. An application of our Ritz values weak majorization result for Laplacian graph spectra comparison is suggested, based on the possibility of interpreting eigenvalues of the edge Laplacian of a given graph as Ritz values of the edge Laplacian of the complete graph. We prove that $|\cos^2\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Z})-\cos^2\Theta({\mathcal Y},{\mathcal Z})| {\prec}_{w} \sin\Theta({\mathcal X},{\mathcal Y})$ where $\lambda^1_k$ and $\lambda^2_k$ are all ordered elements of the Laplacian spectra of two graphs with the same $n$ vertices and with $l$ equal to the number of differing edges.