1. Introduction
Throughout this paper, R denotes a unital ring with involution, i.e., a ring with unity 1, and a mapping satisfying , and , for all . Let , if , , and , then x is called a Moore–Penrose inverse of a. If such an element x exists, then it is unique and denoted by . The set of all Moore–Penrose invertible elements will be denoted by .
An element
is said to be
Drazin invertible if there exists
such that
,
and
for some integer
m. The element
b above is unique if it exists and denoted by
. The smallest positive integer
m is called the Drazin index of
a, denoted by
. The set of all Drazin invertible elements in
R will denoted by
. The DMP-inverse for a complex matrix was introduced by Malik and Thome [
1]. Let
with
, where
denotes the set of all
matrices over the field of complex numbers. A matrix
is called a
DMP-inverse of
A if it satisfies
and
It is unique (and denoted by
). Malik and Thome gave several characterizations of the core inverse by using the decomposition of Hartwig and Spindelböck [
2].
The notion of the core-EP inverse for a complex matrix was introduced by Manjunatha Prasad and Mohana [
3]. A matrix
is a
core-EP inverse of
if
X is an outer inverse of
A satisfying
, where
m is the index of
A and
stands for the range (column space) of
. It is unique and denoted by
. The core-EP inverse for a complex matrix can be investigated by the Core-EP decomposition of a complex matrix by Wang [
4]. The notion of the core-EP inverse is extended from the complex matrix to an element in a ring with involution. We will also use the following notations:
,
,
and
. Let
with ind
. An element
is called the core-EP inverse of
a if it is an outer inverse of
a and
b is a *-EP element satisfies
The notion of the core inverse for a complex matrix was introduced by Baksalary and Trenkler [
5]. In [
6], Rakić et al. generalized the core inverse of a complex matrix to the case of an element in
R. More precisely, let
, if
,
and
, then
x is called a
core inverse of
a. The core inverse can be investigated by three equations by Xu, Chen and Zhang [
7]. If such an element
x exists, then it is unique and denoted by
. The set of all core invertible elements in
R will be denoted by
.
In addition, and will denote the column vectors all of whose components are 1 and 0, respectively. The zero matrix of size is denoted by (abbr. 0). If is a subspace of , then stands for the orthogonal projector onto the subspace . A matrix is unitary if where denotes the identity matrix of size Let , a is called idempotent if . The symbol denotes the set of all positive integers.
3. -Core Inverse
Let us start this section by introducing the notation of the -core inverse.
Definition 2. Let and . If and is idempotent, then is called a-core inverse
of a, if it satisfies It will be proved that if x exists, then it is unique and denoted by .
Remark 1. If is -core invertible, then we have and is idempotent. Since this property of the -core inverse is used many times in the sequel, thus we emphasize it here.
Theorem 2. If equations in (
2)
have a solution, then it is unique. Proof. Let
and
be two candidates
-core inverse of
a, that is
,
,
and
. Thus by
and
is idempotent, we have
□
In the following lemma, we will show that if a is -core invertible.
Lemma 1. Let and . If a is -core invertible, then
- (1)
;
- (2)
;
- (3)
, where .
Proof. and
. If
a is
-core invertible, then we have
and
. Having in mind that
and the idempotency of
, we obtain
Thus, by (
3) and (
4), we have
. If , then by the definition of the -core inverse and . □
Theorem 3. If the solution of the equations in (
2)
exists, then the unique solution is . Proof. By Lemma 1, we have
. Having in mind that
and the idempotency of
, we obtain
□
Remark 2. If and , then the -core inverse is the generalizations of the -core inverse and the -core inverse [
11]
, respectively. More precisely, we have the following statements: - (1)
If and , then the -core inverse coincides with the -core inverse;
- (2)
If and , then the -core inverse coincides with the -core inverse.
By Remarks 3.5, 4.7 and 4.8 in [
11], we have the
-core inverse for a complex matrix, which extends the notions of the core inverse defined by Baksalary and Trenkler [
5] and the core-EP inverse defined by Manjunatha Prasad and Mohana [
3], respectively. The
-core inverse for a complex matrix, which extends the notions of the core inverse and the
-inverse defined by Malik and Thome [
1], respectively. Therefore, we have the following remark by Remark 2. We can use generalized inverses to study the system of constrained matrix equations and Toeplitz matrix, etc. [
12,
13].
Remark 3. If and , then the -core inverse is a generalization of the core inverse, the DMP inverse and the core-EP inverse. More precisely, we have the following statements:
- (1)
If , and , then the -core inverse coincides with the core inverse;
- (2)
If , and , then the -core inverse coincides with the DMP inverse;
- (3)
If , , and , then the -core inverse coincides with the core-EP inverse.
Example 1. The -core inverse is different from the group inverse and the Moore–Penrose inverse. Let . Then by , but A is not Moore–Penrose invertible by . Note that if A is Moore–Penrose invertible, then , but . In fact, implies A is not -invertible. If we let , , then .
Theorem 4. Let and . If and is idempotent, then the following are equivalent:
- (1)
a is -core invertible with ;
- (2)
and ;
- (3)
, and .
Proof. and are trivial by Lemma 1 and the definition of the -core inverse.
. From we have that x is the -core inverse of a.
. It is sufficient to prove . We have . □
Remark 4. Note that iff iff . Moreover, iff iff . Thus, we can obtain more conditions such that a is -core invertible in Theorem 4.
If , and , then the -core inverse coincides with the core inverse, thus we have the following corollary by Theorem 4.
Corollary 1. Let with . Then the following are equivalent:
- (1)
a is core invertible with ;
- (2)
and ;
- (3)
and .
Since the -core inverse is a generalization of the core inverse, the core-EP inverse, the DMP-inverse, -core inverse and -core inverse, we can obtain some analogous corollaries as Corollary 1.
Recall that for
, we can represent any
as a matrix
where
,
,
and
.
Now we present the result concerning the matrix form of -core invertible element .
Theorem 5. Let and . Then a is -core invertible if and only if there exists such that ,where , , is -core invertible and -core invertible. The -core inverse of a is given by Proof. Suppose that
a is
-core invertible and let
. Then
,
and
. Hence,
where
and
. Similarly, we obtain, for
and
,
The equalities
and
give
and
. Set
From
, we obtain
,
and
. Since
, then
. Now, by
we conclude that
and
. Hence,
is
-core invertible and
-core invertible with
and
.
Conversely, by the assumption
and
, we check that
. Since
is
-core invertible and
-core invertible, if we let
we get
and
. So,
a is
-core invertible and
. □
Under some conditions, we obtain that the -core inverse of a and the -core inverse of b commute.
Lemma 2. Let and . If a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible and (or equivalently , then .
Proof. Because and by Theorem 3, we get . □
Now, we study when the product of one -core invertible element and one -core invertible element is -core invertible.
Theorem 6. Let and such that a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible, and . We have the following statements:
- (1)
If (or equivalently , then is -core invertible and ;
- (2)
If , then is -core invertible and .
Proof. Since and are idempotents and , notice that and . The assumptions and imply .
(1). Since , and , we have . Therefore, is -core invertible and .
(2). From we can get that by Lemma 2. By , we deduce that . □
In the case that , the sum of -core invertible element a and -core invertible element b is -core invertible.
Theorem 7. Let and such that a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible and . Then is -core invertible and .
Proof. First, observe that
and
. Further,
and
. Analogously,
. Thus,
and
that is,
is
-core invertible and
. □
Lemma 3. Let and and a is -core invertible. Then if and only if .
Proof. By Lemma 1, we have . If , then . For the opposite implication, we have . □
Proposition 1. Let and . If a is -core invertible, then
- (1)
If , then is an inner inverse of and q is idempotent;
- (2)
If (or equivalently , then ;
- (3)
If q is idempotent, then is an outer inverse of ;
- (4)
If , then ;
- (5)
If and , then .
Proof. (1). Since and , we have that and .
(2). It is easy to check that by and . Thus, we have by Lemma 3.
(3). The condition gives
(4). By definition of the -core inverse.
(5). It follows from (2) and (4). □
Applying Proposition 1, we obtain the next result.
Corollary 2. Let and . If a is -core invertible, then
- (1)
If and , then and ;
- (2)
If , and , then and (that is, is EP).
4. -Core Inverse
Definition 3. Let and . We say that is a-core inverse
of a, if it satisfies It will be proved that if x exists, then it is unique and denoted by .
Theorem 8. If equations in (
6)
have a solution, then it is unique and the unique solution is . Proof. Let
x satisfy (
6). Then
". Observe that this implies the uniqueness of the equations (
6): the unique element in
R satisfying (
6) is
. □
If
a is
-core invertible, then we have
and
and
By Theorem 8, we have ; here, x is the -core inverse of a (see next Theorem 11).
Lemma 4. Let and . If a is -core invertible, then .
Remark 5. If and , then the -core inverse is a generalization of the -core inverse and the -core inverse [
11]
. More precisely, we have the following statements: - (1)
If and , then the -core inverse coincides with the -core inverse;
- (2)
If and , then the -core inverse coincides with the -core inverse.
Theorem 9. Let and . Then the following are equivalent:
- (1)
a is -core invertible with ;
- (2)
and ;
- (3)
, and .
Proof. and are trivial by Lemma 4 and the definition of the -core inverse.
. From we have that x is the -core inverse of a.
. It is sufficient to prove . We have . □
Under certain conditions, the product of a -core invertible element and a -core invertible element is -core invertible.
Theorem 10. Let and such that a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible, , , and . Then is -core invertible and .
Proof. Notice that
and
imply
is
-core invertible and
. □
We also study when the sum of a -core invertible element and a -core invertible element is -core invertible.
Theorem 11. Let and such that a is -core invertible, b is -core invertible, , and . Then is -core invertible and .
Proof. Let x be the -core inverse of a and y be the -core inverse of b, then by Theorem 8, we have □
It is easy to check the following propositions by Definition 3 and Theorem 8.
Proposition 2. Let and such that a is -core invertible. Then if and only if .
Proposition 3. Let and such that a is -core invertible. Then
- (1)
If , then is an inner inverse of and q is idempotent;
- (2)
If , then ;
- (3)
If , then ;
- (4)
If and , then .