May 18 – 22, 2026
Virginia Tech
America/New_York timezone

Nearest matrix with multiple eigenvalues by Riemannian optimization

May 18, 2026, 11:00 AM
25m
Torgersen Hall 1030 (Virginia Tech)

Torgersen Hall 1030

Virginia Tech

Minisymposium Talk Matrix Nearness Problems Matrix Nearness Problems

Speaker

Vanni Noferini (Aalto University)

Description

Given a square complex matrix $A$, we tackle the problem of finding the nearest matrix with multiple eigenvalues or, equivalently when $A$ had distinct eigenvalues, the nearest defective matrix. To this goal, we extend the general framework described in [M. Gnazzo, V. Noferini, L. Nyman, F. Poloni, Riemann-Oracle: A general-purpose Riemannian optimizer to solve nearness problems in matrix theory, Found. Comput. Math. 2025] and based on variable projection and Riemannian optimization, allowing the ambient manifold to simultaneously track left and right eigenvectors. Our method also allows us to impose arbitrary complex-linear constraints on either the perturbation or the perturbed matrix; this can be useful to study structured eigenvalue condition numbers. We present numerical experiments, comparing with preexisting algorithms.

Author

Vanni Noferini (Aalto University)

Co-authors

Dr Federico Poloni (Università di Pisa) Dr Lauri Nyman (University of Manchester)

Presentation materials

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