Continuity of the Perron Root

Abstract

That the Perron root of a square nonnegative matrix A varies continuously with the entries in A is a corollary of theorems regarding continuity of eigenvalues or roots of polynomial equations, the proofs of which necessarily involve complex numbers. But since continuity of the Perron root is a question that is entirely in the field of real numbers, it seems reasonable that there should exist a development involving only real analysis. This article presents a simple and completely self-contained development that depends only on real numbers and first principles.