Inequality involving negative powers of positive definite matrices

36 Views Asked by At

Let $A$ and $B$ be positive definite matrices. How to show that $(A+B)^{-2}< A^{-2}$?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

You can't because it isn't true. Counterexample: $(A+B)^{-2}<A^{-2}$ is equivalent to $(A+B)^2-A^2>0$, but \begin{aligned} &\left[\pmatrix{1&5\\ 5&26}+\pmatrix{2&10\\ 10&51}\right]^2-\pmatrix{1&5\\ 5&26}^2\\ =&\pmatrix{3&15\\ 15&77}^2-\pmatrix{1&5\\ 5&26}^2\\ =&\pmatrix{234&1200\\ 1200&6154}-\pmatrix{26&135\\ 135&701}\\ =&\pmatrix{208&1065\\ 1065&5453} \end{aligned} is not positive definite because its determinant is $-1$.