Centrosymmetric Stochastic Matrices

Abstract

We consider the convex set $\Gamma_{m,n}$ of $m\times n$ stochastic matrices and the convex set $\Gamma_{m,n}^\pi\subset \Gamma_{m,n}$ of $m\times n$ centrosymmetric stochastic matrices (stochastic matrices that are symmetric under rotation by 180 degrees). For $\Gamma_{m,n}$, we demonstrate a Birkhoff theorem for its extreme points and create a basis from certain $(0,1)$-matrices. For $\Gamma_{m,n}^\pi$, we characterize its extreme points and create bases, whose construction depends on the parity of $m$, using our basis construction for stochastic matrices. For each of $\Gamma_{m,n}$ and $\Gamma_{m,n}^\pi$, we further characterize their extreme points in terms of their associated bipartite graphs, we discuss a graph parameter called the fill and compute it for the various basis elements, and we examine the number of vertices of the faces of these sets. We provide examples illustrating the results throughout.