4.II.10E
Part IB, 2008
What is meant by a Hermitian matrix? Show that if is Hermitian then all its eigenvalues are real and that there is an orthonormal basis for consisting of eigenvectors of .
A Hermitian matrix is said to be positive definite if for all . We write in this case. Show that is positive definite if, and only if, all of its eigenvalues are positive. Show that if then has a unique positive definite square root .
Let be two positive definite Hermitian matrices with . Writing and , show that . By considering eigenvalues of , or otherwise, show that .