A trace inequality for four orthogonal projections

Let P,Q,R,SMK(C)P,Q,R,S\in M_K(\mathbb C) be orthogonal projections satisfying

PQ,RS,Im(P)Im(R)={0},Im(Q)Im(S)={0},P\perp Q,\quad R\perp S,\quad \operatorname{Im}(P)\cap\operatorname{Im}(R)=\{0\},\quad \operatorname{Im}(Q)\cap\operatorname{Im}(S)=\{0\}, rank(P)+rank(Q)=rank(R)+rank(S),rank(P)+rank(R)=rank(Q)+rank(S).\operatorname{rank}(P)+\operatorname{rank}(Q)=\operatorname{rank}(R)+\operatorname{rank}(S),\quad \operatorname{rank}(P)+\operatorname{rank}(R)=\operatorname{rank}(Q)+\operatorname{rank}(S).

Define orthogonal projections using Moore–Penrose inverses:

P=(P+R)1/2P(P+R)1/2,Q=(Q+S)1/2Q(Q+S)1/2,P'=(P+R)^{-1/2}P(P+R)^{-1/2},\quad Q'=(Q+S)^{-1/2}Q(Q+S)^{-1/2}, R=(P+R)1/2R(P+R)1/2,S=(Q+S)1/2S(Q+S)1/2.R'=(P+R)^{-1/2}R(P+R)^{-1/2},\quad S'=(Q+S)^{-1/2}S(Q+S)^{-1/2}.

Projection trace inequality conjecture. Under these hypotheses,

Tr(PR)+Tr(QS)Tr(PQ)+Tr(RS).\operatorname{Tr}(PR)+\operatorname{Tr}(QS)\geq\operatorname{Tr}(P'Q')+\operatorname{Tr}(R'S').

This is presented as the N=2N=2 specialization of the preceding FpF_p inequality and as a step toward proving convergence of the orthogonalization algorithm.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Teodor Banica and Ion Nechita, “Flat matrix models for quantum permutation groups”, arXiv:1602.04456 (2016).

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