For a full-column-rank matrix , extend the thin QR decomposition to an orthogonal matrix . Then
so maps the column space of onto the first coordinate directions. Successive Householder transformations construct the same reduction without first forming a full orthogonal basis.
Let . This is an orthogonal projection matrix, so and . Therefore the Householder transformation
satisfies . If and , then
and hence .
Apply a Householder transformation to the first column of to map it to a multiple of , then apply transformations supported on the trailing coordinates to clear each later column below its diagonal. Their product is orthogonal and produces ; reversing the product gives .
For the displayed matrix, one resulting factorization is
Direct multiplication gives the stated , and .
Since and ,
Thus the first column of is , and is a block upper triangular matrix:
where is its bottom-right submatrix. Therefore
A similarity transformation preserves the characteristic polynomial, so
with algebraic multiplicities included.
To construct , use a Householder transformation. With , choose the sign of to avoid cancellation and set
Then is an orthogonal matrix and maps to up to the chosen sign. If already lies on the first coordinate axis, take a suitable diagonal sign matrix. This is the one-vector case of orthogonal coordinate reduction of a subspace.
Let . Since the two columns are linearly independent, the leading block in
is invertible. Hence . The hypothesis that is an invariant subspace of implies that this coordinate plane is invariant under . Consequently the first two columns of have no entries below row two, and
where is the top-left block and is the bottom-right block. Eigenvalue deflation by an invariant subspace now gives
so
again counting algebraic multiplicities.
For the required orthogonal reduction, take a thin QR decomposition , extend the two orthonormal columns of to an orthogonal matrix , and set . Then
Equivalently, apply one Householder transformation to annihilate entries of , followed by a second Householder transformation acting only on coordinates to annihilate entries of the transformed .