A Trace Condition Equivalent to Simultaneous Triangularizability

Abstract

A collection of matrices over a field F is said to be triangularizable if there is an invertible matrix T over F such that the matrices T⁻¹ST, are all upper triangular. It is a well-known and easy fact that any commutative set is triangularizable if F is algebraically closed, or if F contains the spectrum of every member of . Many sufficient conditions are known for triangularizability of matrix collections. Levitzki [7] proved that a (multiplicative) semigroup of nilpotent matrices is triangularizable. (His result is valid even over a division ring.) Kolchin [5] showed the triangularizability of a semigroup of unipotent matrices, i.e., matrices of the form I + N with N nilpotent. Kaplansky [3, 4] unified and generalized these results.