Matrix Spencer conjecture

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Let nn be a positive integer, and let A1,…,AnA_1,\dots,A_n be self-adjoint n×nn\times n matrices, each with spectral norm at most one.

Matrix Spencer conjecture. There exists a universal constant CC such that

\min_{\varepsilon\in\\{\pm1\\}^n} \left\\| \sum_{k=1}^n \varepsilon_k A_k \right\\| \leq C\sqrt{n}.

This is a matrix-valued generalization of Spencer's discrepancy theorem. The source states that the conjecture was posed in earlier work and that the present paper proves it, so the claim is solved.

References

Primary source

Afonso S. Bandeira and Helmut Bölcskei, “Matrix Discrepancy for Representations of Finite Groups”, arXiv:2606.12181 (2026).

Additional references

7 papers in this index state this conjecture (2022–2026). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2606.16005, arXiv:2510.01021, arXiv:2504.20539, arXiv:2410.17887, arXiv:2307.10055, arXiv:2212.00066.

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