Real matrices whose columns have equal modulus coordinates

Abstract

We study $m \times n$ matrices whose columns are of the form \[\{(a_{1j},\ldots, a_{nj}): \quad a_{1j} = \lambda_j,\ a_{ij} = \pm\lambda_j\ , \ \lambda_j >0 ,\ j=1,2,\ldots,n\}.\] We explicitly construct for all $a = (a_1,\ldots, a_{\frac{m(m- 1)}{2}}) \in \mathbb{R}^{\frac{m(m-1)}{2}}$ a matrix of the above form whose rows have pairwise dot product equal to $a$. Using Hardamard matrices constructed by Sylvester we classify all matrices of the above form whose rows have pairwise dot product equal to $a$. We also use our results to reformulate the Hadamard conjecture.