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For normalized columns and $1\le s\le N$, the restricted isometry constant is bounded by the cumulative coherence at $s-1$. A restricted Gram matrix has diagonal one and every off-diagonal row sum at most ${\mu }_1(s-1)$. The Gershgorin circle theorem and the finite-dimensional spectral theorem bound its eigenvalues between $1-{\mu }_1(s-1)$ and $1+{\mu }_1(s-1)$. At $s=1$ the distortion is zero, and at $s=2$ it is exactly the mutual coherence.

Use the natural empty-sum convention ${\mu }_1(0)=0$ for cumulative coherence. This is needed for the printed case $s=1$. For $x=0$ the conclusion is immediate. Otherwise let $S$ be its support of a vector, with $k=|S|\le s$. The Gram matrix $G=A_S^{\ast }{A}_S$ has diagonal entries one because the columns have unit Euclidean norm. Each off-diagonal row sum is bounded byThe last inequality uses monotonicity of cumulative coherence: enlarging an index set only adds nonnegative summands. There are enough indices to enlarge it because $s\le N$.

The Gershgorin circle theorem places every eigenvalue of $G$ within distance ${\mu }_1(s-1)$ of one. Since $G$ is a Hermitian matrix, its eigenvalues are real, and the finite-dimensional spectral theorem givesThis is the cumulative coherence bound for restricted isometry. The lower bound remains valid when ${\mu }_1(s-1)>1$, although it is then nonpositive. No assumption that the matrix is already a near isometry is required. The distortion is bounded by ${\mu }_1(s-1)$ on every order-$s$ sparse vector.

For one-column Gram matrices, unit Euclidean norm of the columns gives $A_S^{\ast }{A}_S=1$. The restricted isometry constant formula therefore gives ${\delta }_1=0$. For a two-column Gram matrix, put $c=⟨a_i,a_j⟩$. The difference from the identity matrix has the formup to the convention for the complex inner product. Its characteristic polynomial is ${\lambda }^2-|c{|}^2$, so the eigenvalues are $\pm |c|$ and its matrix 2-norm is $|c|$. Maximizing over pairs gives ${\delta }_2=\mu$, where $\mu$ is the mutual coherence.

Part (b), together with the minimality defining the restricted isometry constant, gives ${\delta }_s\le {\mu }_1(s-1)$. Every summand defining cumulative coherence is at most the mutual coherence, so ${\mu }_1(s-1)\le (s-1)\mu$. Thus, for normalized columns and $N\ge 2$,The upper range $s\le N$ matters because the printed definition of cumulative coherence stops at $N-1$. For $N=1$, only ${\delta }_1=0$ is needed; the maximum over pairs defining mutual coherence is otherwise empty.