Determinant and inverse of join matrices on two sets

Abstract

Let $(P,\preceq)$ be a lattice and $f$ a complex-valued function on $P$. We define meet and join matrices on two arbitrary subsets $X$ and $Y$ of $P$ by $(X,Y)_f=(f(x_i\wedge y_j))$ and $[X,Y]_f=(f(x_i\vee x_j))$ respectively. Here we present expressions for the determinant and the inverse of $[X,Y]_f$. Our main goal is to cover the case when $f$ is not semimultiplicative since the formulas presented earlier for $[X,Y]_f$ cannot be applied in this situation. In cases when $f$ is semimultiplicative we obtain several new and known formulas for the determinant and inverse of $(X,Y)_f$ and the usual meet and join matrices $(S)_f$ and $[S]_f$. We also apply these formulas to LCM, MAX, GCD and MIN matrices, which are special cases of join and meet matrices.