I am currently working through some exercises for a course, and a property of tensors was given. I was curious where it came from - so I tried to prove the property, but I can't seem to figure it out. Any help? The statement is as follows:
Suppose I have a second rank tensor $Q$, which has dimension three. I can define the following quantity: $$I_n = \mathrm{Tr}(Q^n)$$ Now we have three invariants; $I_1$, $I_2$, $I_3$. In general we can rewrite $I_n$ as a polynomial in $I_1$, $I_2$, and $I_3$.
I came as far as rewriting $I_n = \lambda_1^n + \lambda_2^n + \lambda_3^n$, but from there on I do not see how to continue. Simply filling this in to the polynomial did not really give me any leads.
Thanks in advance!