If A and B are Hermitian Matrices, $\text{tr}(ABAB) \geq 0$.

197 Views Asked by At

Can anybody help me with this problem. If $A$ and $B$ are Hermitian Matrices, then $\text{tr}(ABAB) \geq 0$.

It is easy to show that the trace is a real number, but I cannot prove that it must be non-negative.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

1
On

You need further conditions. Take $$ A = \pmatrix{1 & 0 \\ 0 & -1}, B=\pmatrix{0 & 1\\ 1 & 0}.$$ Then $AB$ is a rotation by 90 degrees and $(AB)^2=-I$ has trace -2.