Ivan Shishkin, Rye (1878)

Problems/Linear algebraUnreviewed

Déterminant d’une matrice PGCD

by Ancient Tree·translated by Catalpa·
51
Difficulty scaleÉchelle de difficulté

This score reflects both the level of the required concepts and the difficulty of the solution.Ce score tient compte à la fois du niveau des notions nécessaires et de la difficulté de la résolution.

  1. 110First steps / middle schoolPremiers pas / collège
  2. 1125Beginner / high schoolDébutant / lycée
  3. 2650Intermediate / undergraduateIntermédiaire / licence
  4. 5170Advanced / graduateAvancé / master
  5. 7190Expert / specializedExpert / spécialisé
  6. 91100Research levelNiveau recherche
These levels are approximate guides.Ces niveaux sont des repères approximatifs.
·
Français
FrançaisEnglish
Unreviewed. This problem has not been reviewed by trusted users yet.

Quel est le déterminant de la matrice AnA_{n} de taille n×nn\times n dont les coefficients sont (pgcd(i,j))1i,jn(\operatorname{pgcd}(i, j))_{1 \leq i, j \leq n} ?

I solved itMark it doneAdd to my listKeep it in your list

Hints

2

Hint 1

Open this only if you want a small nudge before looking at the solutions.

Solutions

1
Reveal solutionsAre you sure? Give it a try first.

Solution by Ancient Tree · translated by CatalpaEN

Discussions0 useful votes

After testing the first cases, one is led to conjecture the formula :
det(An)=i=1nφ(i)\operatorname{det}\left(A_n\right)=\prod_{i=1}^n \varphi(i)where φ\varphi is Euler’s totient function.
One first trick to make this function appear in the coefficients of the matrix is to remember that, for any integer m1m\geq 1, we have that :
m=dmφ(d)m=\sum_{d | m} \varphi(d)Applying this to the gcd, we obtain :
gcd(i,j)=dgcd(i,j)φ(d)=di and djφ(d)\operatorname{gcd}(i, j)=\sum_{d \mid \operatorname{gcd}(i, j)} \varphi(d)=\sum_{d \mid i \text { and }d|j} \varphi(d)This can be rewritten as a sum over all 1dn1\leq d\leq n by introducing the symbols δdi\delta_{d|i}, which are 1 if did|i and 0 if not :
gcd(i,j)=d=1nδdiφ(d)δdj\operatorname{gcd}(i, j)=\sum_{d=1}^{n} \delta_{d \mid i} \varphi(d) \delta_{d \mid j}But this is reminiscent of the formula for the coefficient of a matrix of the form LDUL D U where DD is diagonal. More precisely here, we have :
gcd(i,j)=(Ldiag(φ(1),,φ(n))L)ij\operatorname{gcd}(i, j)=\left(L \operatorname{diag}(\varphi(1), \ldots, \varphi(n)) L^{\top}\right)_{ij}where
LL is the upper triangular matrix with coefficients Lij=δjiL_{ij}=\delta_{j|i}. So the determinant of our matrix is given by :
det(An)=i=1nφ(i)det(L)2\operatorname{det}\left(A_n\right)=\prod_{i=1}^n \varphi(i) \cdot \operatorname{det}(L)^2But it is straightforward to see that LL is a triangular matrix with 1s on the diagonal, so its determinant is 1. We have arrived at the wanted result.

NB: The decomposition of our matrix AnA_{n} written above is called the LULU decomposition, where LL stands for "lower triangular" and UU for "upper triangular". It is really useful to compute some determinants and its unicity can lead to some beautiful formulas.

Report

For an unclear, ambiguous, or possibly incorrect statement, please use the Discussion tab on the right. Report content that needs moderator intervention, such as dangerous, clearly non-mathematical, or plagiarized content.