Let be the universal covering map. Since the complex plane is a simply connected domain, the lifting criterion for a covering space gives a holomorphic lift between one-dimensional complex tori such that
For every , the difference belongs to the discrete period lattice . It depends continuously on , so it is constant. Differentiating shows that the derivative is -periodic. It is bounded on the compact closure of a fundamental parallelogram, and periodicity makes it bounded on all of . The Liouville theorem therefore makes constant, and hence
Thus every holomorphic map has an affine lift of a holomorphic map between one-dimensional complex tori. If “map of complex tori” means an identity-preserving map, choose ; then , so is the required linear map. Without that convention the statement must say affine, since a nonzero translation in a group of the torus lifts to .
The Weierstrass elliptic function of is
The subtracted term gives the Normal convergence of the Weierstrass elliptic-function series away from . Put
The Laurent coefficients of the Weierstrass elliptic function at zero give
Set and . Direct substitution shows that the principal part and constant term of
vanish at zero. Since is an elliptic function, translation gives the same cancellation at every point of the period lattice. Every apparent isolated singularity is therefore a removable singularity, so is an entire function. It is periodic and hence bounded on the translates of a compact fundamental parallelogram. The Liouville theorem gives , which proves the Weierstrass elliptic differential equation
Finally suppose that is a biholomorphic group homomorphism. Its identity-preserving lift has the form by the first part. Since the inverse map also lifts linearly,
Choose a -basis of . Multiplication by is then represented by a unimodular matrix . As a real-linear transformation of , it has determinant ; hence and . The characteristic polynomial of and the Cayley-Hamilton theorem give
This already has the required form with and . Moreover , so forces . Thus is a root of unity, of order , , , , or , completing the description of an automorphism of a one-dimensional complex torus.
The structure theorem for finitely generated modules over a principal ideal domain applies because every Euclidean domain is a principal ideal domain. It says that a finitely generated -module is isomorphic to
where the nonzero nonunits are unique up to multiplication by units. They are the invariant factors.
For , multiplication by is the linear map . Since is finite-dimensional over , is a finitely generated torsion module over the polynomial ring , so it has no free summand. Choosing each invariant factor to be monic gives
The basis of each cyclic summand makes multiplication by a companion matrix. Concatenating these bases therefore puts in rational canonical form.
On , a polynomial annihilates multiplication by exactly when it is divisible by . It follows that the minimal polynomial and characteristic polynomial are
The second identity follows blockwise from the characteristic polynomial of a companion matrix. Since every divides , the product annihilates every cyclic summand. Thus , which is the Cayley-Hamilton theorem.
For the displayed matrix, the given generators of are the columns of
Elementary row and column operations over give the Smith normal form
Consequently the nonunit invariant factors are
and, as a check,
Using the convention of the question, the characteristic polynomial and characteristic equation are
For
one has
Direct multiplication gives
entry by entry. Thus , verifying the Cayley-Hamilton theorem for matrices.
Define
The Cayley-Hamilton theorem for
gives
If is nonsingular, multiplication by shows .
For arbitrary , apply the nonsingular result to for a sequence of nonzero avoiding the finitely many singular values. Both the characteristic coefficients and the adjugate entries depend polynomially on the matrix entries, so the limit gives
Put
Using , multiplication by on the ordered basis is determined by
Its matrix, with these coordinate vectors as columns, is
The characteristic polynomial is
By the Cayley-Hamilton theorem, this monic integer polynomial annihilates , so is an algebraic integer.
Let
The element is also integral because it satisfies the monic polynomial . Hence . Since
the lattice has index two in . The given power-basis discriminant is
so the discriminant-index formula for an integral lattice gives
If , then
Because is prime, the square can divide only when . Thus
so is an integral basis of the cubic field of discriminant minus 307.
Finally, the relation gives
Consequently , which will allow direct use of Dedekind's theorem.
For the standard basis vector , matrix multiplication selects the th column, so
Consequently
and the columns of are .
Suppose first that are linearly independent, and define
Then is invertible. The first columns of are the last columns of . By the Cayley-Hamilton theorem,
This is exactly the last-column rule for the companion matrix , so
Conversely, suppose , or , and write the columns of as . Comparing the first columns gives
Hence
Since is invertible, its columns are linearly independent. Taking therefore makes
linearly independent. Thus is similar to exactly when it has the stated cyclic vector.
The minimal polynomial is the unique monic polynomial of least positive degree such that . The Cayley-Hamilton theorem says that satisfies its characteristic polynomial, so such polynomials exist. Dividing any two monic candidates of least degree shows uniqueness.
If , then but . The least for which is the least integer satisfying . Hence
The Cayley-Hamilton theorem states that a square matrix satisfies its characteristic polynomial. If a matrix is diagonalisable, ; applying to the diagonal matrix gives zero and hence .
If , every eigenvalue satisfies , so all eigenvalues are zero and the characteristic polynomial is . Cayley--Hamilton then gives .
For an matrix , the characteristic polynomial is
The Cayley-Hamilton theorem states that .
Over , choose a basis in which is upper triangular, with diagonal entries . For the standard invariant flag ,
The factors commute, so applying their product in descending order sends successively into . Hence
which proves the theorem.
Direct expansion gives the commutator product rule:
Put . Since commutes with , repeated use of the product rule gives
By linearity, for every polynomial ,
Let and suppose . For ,
Assume inductively that
Both and are polynomials in, or commute with, , so . Apply the derivation to and multiply on the left by :
Since , this says
The induction is complete. Taking and gives
Thus is nilpotent, which is the Jacobson lemma for a commuting commutator.
Suppose for a contradiction that . Compose the given injective module homomorphism with the standard injection that appends zero coordinates. This gives an injective endomorphism of the finite free module whose matrix has a zero final row.
Its characteristic polynomial has zero constant term, so the Cayley-Hamilton theorem gives
Injectivity lets us cancel . Repeating this argument eventually gives the identity endomorphism equal to zero. That would imply , contrary to . Hence . This proves the rank inequality for an injection of finite free modules.
Cayley-Hamilton theorem says . Since is nilpotent, all eigenvalues and hence every non-leading coefficient of vanish, so and .
Direct matrix multiplication gives
Consequently , the Cayley-Hamilton theorem for its characteristic polynomial . Rearranging gives , so
Nilpotence and eigenvalues. If with , then . Thus forces for every eigenvalue. Conversely, if all complex eigenvalues, counted with algebraic multiplicity, vanish, the monic characteristic polynomial is . The Cayley-Hamilton theorem then gives . Hence
This is the criterion for a nilpotent matrix.
Symmetric case. Here a symmetric matrix is understood to be real. The spectral theorem gives with orthogonal and real diagonal. The previous result makes every diagonal entry zero, so . Alternatively, choose , so . For every real vector ,
It follows that . Repeat until . This uses positivity of the quadratic form . The restriction to real symmetric, or complex Hermitian matrices, matters: a complex matrix satisfying only need not have this positivity.
The parameters and powers. The first two columns of coincide, so for all . The sum of its principal two-by-two determinants, each a minor of a matrix, is
Together with , this gives
For every eigenvalue to vanish both remaining coefficients must be zero. Therefore
Direct multiplication at these values gives
Indeed the first row of multiplied by is , and the second row is its negative.
Geometry of repeated application. For any parameters the image of a linear map lies in the span of and , since . Thus it lies in a fixed plane through the origin, independently of the input. When are independent its normal is ; if they coincide, the image is a line and is still contained in a plane.
For , put and . Then
The columns span this entire plane, so has rank two. The next two steps are
Thus the image of a linear map contracts from a plane to a line and then to the origin under successive applications. The line from is precisely the kernel of .
A matrix is diagonalizable if some invertible makes diagonal, equivalently if it has a basis of eigenvectors. If and for , then , so every eigenvalue is zero. There is at least one zero eigenvalue: otherwise and hence would be invertible. A diagonalizable nilpotent matrix has an all-zero diagonal form and therefore is zero itself.
For the specified matrices, direct determinant expansion gives
The Cayley-Hamilton theorem gives . Its entry is nonzero for every real , so is not diagonalizable for any . The matrix has three distinct real eigenvalues and is therefore diagonalizable over . For an explicit check, take columns , , in ; then .
This Lie group consists of real two-by-two matrices of determinant one. Its Lie algebra is the space of traceless real two-by-two matrices. Its Exponential map of a Lie group is not onto: by the Cayley-Hamilton theorem, for traceless , and its exponential has trace either or , hence never less than . The determinant-one matrix is therefore outside its exponential image.
Under rotation by a rotation matrix, a symmetric second-rank tensor transforms by conjugation, so its traces of powers are invariant. For a three-dimensional traceless second-rank tensor, the Cayley-Hamilton theorem implies . In two dimensions its eigenvalues are , so . These identities organize the Landau-de Gennes free energy.
A two-by-two matrix with zero trace satisfies by the Cayley-Hamilton theorem. Over the complex numbers, either and its two distinct eigenvalues make it diagonalizable, or . A matrix commutator has zero trace, so this alternative applies to it. Diagonalization over the real numbers need not follow when .
Square-zero criterion for a two-by-two matrix Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-18
For a real or complex two-by-two matrix , the Cayley-Hamilton theorem reads . Hence exactly when . Conversely, if for any positive integer , every eigenvalue is zero and the same identity gives . Thus a nonzero nilpotent matrix of this size has nilpotency index two.
For , the off-diagonal equations in are . Thus either or the trace is one. The condition alone is not sufficient: has trace one but is not an idempotent matrix. For a two-by-two matrix of trace one, idempotence is equivalent to zero determinant, by the Cayley-Hamilton theorem.