The interior consists exactly of strictly copositive matrices. If has positive minimum on the compact nonnegative unit sphere, perturbations of operator norm less than preserve this positive lower bound there. Conversely, if a unit nonnegative vector has zero quadratic form, leaves the copositive cone for every . Thus such a matrix is not interior. The identity matrix is a convenient interior point.
A pointed cone has no nonzero line through the origin: equivalently . If , its quadratic form vanishes on the nonnegative orthant. Testing the coordinate vectors gives . Testing then gives
Since is a symmetric matrix, every entry is zero. Thus .
The identity matrix gives an interior point. For a symmetric perturbation with operator norm , the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives
This open norm ball around lies even in the positive semidefinite cone, hence in . Consequently and the interior is nonempty.
More generally, the interior of the copositive cone consists exactly of strictly copositive matrices. Positivity on the compact nonnegative unit sphere has a positive minimum and persists under small perturbations; a zero there is destroyed by an arbitrarily small negative multiple of .