A p-adic Perron-Frobenius Theorem

Abstract

We prove that if an $n\times n$ matrix defined over ${\mathbb Q}_p$ (or more generally an arbitrary complete, discretely-valued, non-Archimedean field) satisfies a certain congruence property, then it has a strictly maximal eigenvalue in ${\mathbb Q}_p$, and that iteration of the (normalized) matrix converges to a projection operator onto the corresponding eigenspace. This result may be viewed as a $p$-adic analogue of the Perron-Frobenius theorem for positive real matrices.