Diagonal elements in the Nonnegative Inverse Eigenvalue Problem

Abstract

We say that a list of complex numbers is "realisable" if it is the spectrum of some (entrywise) nonnegative matrix. The Nonnegative Inverse Eigenvalue Problem (NIEP) is the problem of characterising all realisable lists. Although the NIEP remains unsolved, it has been solved in the case where every entry in the list (apart from the Perron eigenvalue) has nonpositive real part. For a given spectrum of this type, we show that a list of nonnegative numbers may arise as the diagonal elements of the realising matrix if and only if these numbers satisfy a remarkably simple inequality. Furthermore, we show that realisation can be achieved by the sum of a companion matrix and a diagonal matrix.