An orthonormal eigenbasis is
The starting vector has the orthogonal decomposition
Hence its component in the dominant eigenspace is exactly zero. Normalizing gives
Since the two remaining eigenvectors are orthogonal,
Therefore
The limit is not the leading eigenvalue because the nonorthogonality assumption in part (a) fails. On the active spectrum of the power method, the leading eigenvalue is and the next is ; indeed
in agreement with the squared spectral-ratio estimate.
Suppose is a diagonalizable matrix, , with an eigenbasis and spectral decomposition
Assume the dominant eigenvalue is a simple eigenvalue and
Then the normalized power iteration approaches the one-dimensional eigenspace of . Its asymptotic direction-error bound has factor . This spectral gap is a gap in modulus: if , then . A small relative gap gives slow convergence.[ref]
The short proof is the exact eigenbasis identity
The remaining sum has norm bounded by a constant times . This proves convergence of direction, allowing a changing sign or complex factor. A tiny or a poorly conditioned, nonorthogonal eigenbasis can delay visible convergence: the condition number of affects constants, while controls the eventual rate. The bound need not be an equality; if the initial coefficient of the second-largest eigenvalue vanishes, the active spectrum of the power method gives a faster rate. When , all unwanted components disappear after one multiplication.[ref]
The hypothesis is , not an ordinary nonzero inner product with the right eigenvector. Let be the first row of , a left eigenvector normalized so is for and otherwise; denotes conjugate transpose. Then . For a Hermitian matrix, choose an orthonormal eigenbasis and the criterion becomes : the starting vector must be nonorthogonal to the dominant eigenvector. For a general diagonalizable matrix, the nonorthogonal eigenbasis makes these two tests different, as illustrated under power iteration failure cases.