A Note on the Exponents of Primitive Companion Matrices

Abstract

A nonnegative matrix $A$ is said to be {\it primitive} if for some positive integer $m$, entries in $A^m$ are positive, notationally represented as $A^m>0.$ The smallest such $m$ is called the {\it exponent} of $A$, denoted $exp(A).$ For the class of primitive companion matrices $X$, we find $exp(A)$ for certain $A \in X.$ Thereafter, we find certain numbers in $E_n(X)$, where $E_n(X)=\{m \in \N : \text{there exists an $n \times n$ matrix $A$ in $X$ with} \; exp(A)=m\}$. At the end we propose open problems for further research.