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\title{A technique from Lovasz and Szegedy for showing that matrices related to set-functions are PSD}
\author{Chris Beck}
\maketitle

The goal in this note is to expose in detail a small but very interesting part of a paper of Lovasz \& Szegedy titled ``Limits of Dense Graph Sequences''. In it, they employ a useful factorization of a class of combinatorial matrices which they can use to see that certain matrices are or are not PSD.

\section{M{\"o}bius Inversion}

It is helpful I think to give a linear-algebra oriented definition of M{\"o}bius Inversion to set the stage and fix notation. This part of the exposition is based on chapter 25 in Van Lint \& Wilson's textbook.

Let $P$ denote any finite partially ordered set, and let $\mathbb{F}$ denote any field.

Let $\mathcal{M}_{\mathbb{F}}(P)$ denote the algebra of matrices whose rows and columns are indexed by elements of $P$. (In other words it is the endomoprhism algebra of the vector space $\mathbb{F}^{P}$.)

The \emph{incidence algebra} $\mathbb{A}_{\mathbb{F}} (P)$ is a subalgebra of $\mathcal{M}_{\mathbb{F}}(P)$, consisting of those matrices which have zeros at all positions $(i,j)$ such that $i \not\leq j$.

(We will usually suppress $\mathbb{F}$.)

Alternatively, $\mathbb{A}(P)$ is the subalgebra generated by the elementary matrices $\left\{ e_{i,j} \right\}_{i \leq j}$. It is easy to see that this set of matrices, together with the zero matrix, is closed as a monoid under multiplication, so the linear span of these elements is the whole subalgebra.

An element of $\mathbb{A}(P)$ that is important to our exposition is the \emph{zeta function} of $P$, defined by

\[ \zeta(x,y) = \left\{ \begin{array}{lc} 1 & \textrm{ if } x \leq y \textrm{ in } P \\ 0 & \textrm{otherwise} \end{array} \right. \ .\]

$\zeta$ corresponds to the matrix $Z$ in Lovasz \& Szegedy's paper.

Because $\zeta$ has ones along the diagonal and is upper triangular otherwise (with respect to any total ordering extending $P$), $\zeta$ has an inverse in $\mathbb{A}(P)$, and the inverse matrix corresponds to the M{\"o}bius function of $P$.

Then (as is well known) the traditional statement of M{\"o}bius inversion can be stated linear algebraically: Suppose that $f, g$ are two vectors in $\mathbb{F}^{P}$, such that $f = \zeta g$ as matrices. Then $\mu f = g$.

The more traditional formulation (which we will use below) is the following:

\begin{theorem}
Let $f : P \to A$ be any function from $P$ to an abelian group $A$.
Let $g$ be the function defined by

\[ g(x) := \sum_{x \leq y} f(y) \ ,\]

Then, it also holds that

\[ f(x) = \sum_{x \leq y} \mu(x,y) g(y) \ .\]
\end{theorem}
\begin{proof}
If $f,g$ are treated as column vectors, the assumption is equivalent to $g = \zeta f$, and the conclusion can be similarly seen to be equivalent to $f = \mu g$. To be completely formal and allow them to take values in an arbitrary abelian group (as the principle is traditionally stated), we should work over a $\mathbb{Z}$-module rather than a vector space over $\mathbb{F}$, which is sufficient to construct the incidence algebra, and build $\zeta$ and $\mu$. Since any abelian group is a $\mathbb{Z}$-module trivially, this proves the traditional formulation. It is possible to prove by an explicit inductive construction that the inverse of $\zeta$ exists uniquely, so we can get $\mu$ without appealing to linear algebra. We'll omit this here.
\end{proof}

\section{An application for PSD matrices}

The following is implicit in Lovasz \& Szegedy. They call this the ``Lindstrom-Wilf formula'', although they don't cite any particular source for this and I didn't find any reference for this formula online.

\begin{lemma}
(Lovasz \& Szegedy)
Let $P$ be a finite lattice.
Let $f$ denote any function $f : P \to \mathbb{R}$, and let $f'$ denote the M{\"o}bius inverse $\mu f$.

Let $\alpha$ denote the matrix defined by $\alpha(S, T) := f(S \cup T)$. Then $\alpha$ is PSD if and only if $f'$ is everywhere nonnegative.
\end{lemma}
\begin{proof}
Let $D$ denote the diagonal matrix defined by

\[ D_{x,y} := \left\{ \begin{array}{lc} f'(x) & x = y \\ 0 & \textrm{otherwise} \end{array} \right. \ .\]

The lemma follows from the claim:

\begin{claim}
$\alpha$ can be factorized as \[ \alpha = \zeta D \zeta^{T} \ .\]
\end{claim}

Note that, since $\zeta^{T}$ is not the inverse of $\zeta$ (that is $\mu$), this is \emph{not} a diagonalization of $\alpha$. (As I erroneously claimed in Avi's office.) In particular, it does not imply that all matrices of the form $\alpha$ commute, so far as I know.

The lemma follows directly from the claim. On the one hand, if $f'$ is nonnegative, then $D$ is PSD, so we have, for any vector $v$,

\[ v^T \alpha v = v^T \zeta D \zeta^{T} v = u^T D u \geq 0 \ ,\]
where $u = \zeta^{T} v$.

On the other hand, if $f'$ is negative in some location, then clearly $D$ is not PSD -- we can take the vector $u$ to be any $e_i$ where $f(i) < 0$, and then we have $u$ such that $u^T D u < 0$.

Then, since $\zeta$ is invertible, we can find a $v$ such that $u = \zeta^T v$, and we have found a vector $v$ such that $v^T \alpha v < 0$.

Now, let's prove the claim, which is an application of M{\"o}bius inversion.

\begin{proof} [Proof of Claim]

Consider any entry of $\zeta D \zeta^{T}$, it is by definition

\[ \left(\zeta D \zeta^{T}\right)_{x,y} := \sum_{z \in P} \zeta_{x,z} \cdot D_{z,z} \cdot \zeta^{T}_{z, y} \]
\[ = \sum_{z \in P} f'(z) \cdot \zeta_{x,z} \cdot \zeta^{T}_{z, y} \]
\[ = \sum_{\begin{array}{c} z \in P \\ x \leq z \\ y \leq z \end{array}} f'(z) \]

Now we use the fact that $P$ is a lattice and not just a poset, so it has unique joins:

\[ = \sum_{x \vee y \leq z} f'(z) \ .\]

This value is clearly equal to $(\zeta f') (x \vee y)$, but since $f'$ is the M{\"o}bius inverse $\mu f$, by the principle of M{\"o}bius inversion this is just $f(x \vee y)$, or $\alpha_{x,y}$ as desired.

\end{proof}

\end{proof}

\end{document}
