Independence and orthogonality of algebraic eigenvectors over the max-plus algebra

Abstract

The max-plus algebra $\mathbb{R}\cup \{-\infty \}$ is a semiring with the two operations: addition $a \oplus b := \max(a,b)$ and multiplication $a \otimes b := a + b$. Roots of the characteristic polynomial of a max-plus matrix are called algebraic eigenvalues. Recently, algebraic eigenvectors with respect to algebraic eigenvalues were introduced as a generalized concept of eigenvectors. In this paper, we present properties of algebraic eigenvectors analogous to those of eigenvectors in the conventional linear algebra. First, we prove that for generic matrices algebraic eigenvectors with respect to distinct algebraic eigenvalues are linearly independent. We further prove that for symmetric matrices algebraic eigenvectors with respect to distinct algebraic eigenvalues are orthogonal to each other.