NUMERICAL RANGE AND POSITIVE BLOCK MATRICES

Abstract

We obtain several norm and eigenvalue inequalities for positive matrices partitioned into four blocks. The results involve the numerical range $W(X)$ of the off-diagonal block $X$, especially the distance $d$ from $0$ to $W(X)$. A special consequence is an estimate, $$\begin{eqnarray}\text{diam}\,W\left(\left[\begin{array}{@{}cc@{}}A & X\\ X^{\ast } & B\end{array}\right]\right)-\text{diam}\,W\biggl(\frac{A+B}{2}\biggr)\geq 2d,\end{eqnarray}$$ between the diameters of the numerical ranges for the full matrix and its partial trace.