Scribd
Upload
12 views1 page

Upper Triangular Matrix Inversion Proof

This proof shows that if A is a nonsingular upper triangular matrix, then A−1 is also upper triangular. It does this by showing that the cofactors Akl are equal to 0 for l > k. The cofactors are the determinants of matrices formed by removing rows and columns from A. Since A is upper triangular, the entries below the diagonal are all 0. Therefore, the cofactors must also be 0 when k > l, meaning the inverse A−1 is upper triangular.

Uploaded by

yip90
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
12 views1 page

Upper Triangular Matrix Inversion Proof

This proof shows that if A is a nonsingular upper triangular matrix, then A−1 is also upper triangular. It does this by showing that the cofactors Akl are equal to 0 for l > k. The cofactors are the determinants of matrices formed by removing rows and columns from A. Since A is upper triangular, the entries below the diagonal are all 0. Therefore, the cofactors must also be 0 when k > l, meaning the inverse A−1 is upper triangular.

Uploaded by

yip90
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Solutions – §3.

8. Prove that if A is a nonsingular upper triangular matrix, then A−1 is upper triangular.

Proof. Let A be an upper triangular matrix. So aij = 0 if i > j. To show that A−1 is upper triangular we
need to show that the cofactors Akl = 0 for l > k. Recall that Akl is (±) the determinant of the matrix
found by removing the kth row and the lth column. Therefore we have the following.

a11 · · · a a · · · a
1,l−1 1,l+1 1n
a21 ··· a2,l−1 a2,l+1 · · · a2n

.. .. .. .. .. ..
. . . . . .

Akl = (−1) ak−1,1 · · · ak−1,l−1 ak−1,l+1 · · · ak−1,n
k+l
ak+1,1 · · · ak+1,l−1 ak+1,l+1 · · · ak+1,n

.
. .
. .
. .
. .
. .
.
. . . . . .

an1 ··· an,l−1 an,l+1 · · · ann

Notice that all entries below the diagonal are zero, since A is upper triangular. The diagonal entries are all
those from A with the exception of the k + 1st row, because that is where the removal took place. Thus
since the kth row was removed and k > l, the entry on the diagonal in that spot is now ak+1,k . However
since k + 1 > k and A is upper triangular, this entry is 0. Thus the kl cofactor is upper triangular and has
a zero in the diagonal. Thus the determinant is 0. Therefore Akl = 0 for all k > l. Hence A−1 is upper
triangular.

You might also like