Paper 4, Section II, E
Part IB, 2013
What does it mean for an matrix to be in Jordan form? Show that if is in Jordan form, there is a sequence of diagonalizable matrices which converges to , in the sense that the th component of converges to the th component of for all and . [Hint: A matrix with distinct eigenvalues is diagonalizable.] Deduce that the same statement holds for all .
Let . Given , define a linear map by . Express the characteristic polynomial of in terms of the trace and determinant of . [Hint: First consider the case where is diagonalizable.]