arXiv:1812.01449 · Linear and Multilinear Algebra
On decomposable correlation matrices
Benjamin Lovitz
Abstract
A correlation matrix is a positive semidefinite matrix with ones on the diagonal. In this work, we introduce and study r-decomposable correlation matrices: those that can be written as the Schur product of correlation matrices of rank at most r. We find that for all r≥ 2, every (r+1)×(r+1) correlation matrix is r-decomposable, and we construct (2r+1)×(2r+1) correlation matrices that are not r-decomposable. One question this leaves open is whether every 4×4 correlation matrix is 2-decomposable, which we make partial progress towards resolving. Motivations in quantum information are discussed.