On generalized inverses of matrices

Abstract

The notion of the inverse of a matrix with entries from the real or complex fields was generalized by Moore (6, 7) in 1920 to include all rectangular (finite dimensional) matrices. In 1951, Bjerhammar (2, 3) rediscovered the generalized inverse for rectangular matrices of maximal rank. In 1955, Penrose (8, 9) independently rediscovered the generalized inverse for arbitrary real or complex rectangular matrices. Recently, Arghiriade (1) has given a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that a matrix commute with its generalized inverse. These conditions involve the existence of certain submatrices and can be expressed using the notion of EPr matrices introduced in 1950 by Schwerdtfeger (10). The main purpose of this paper is to prove the following theorem:Theorem 2. A necessary and sufficient condition that the generalized inverse of the matrix A (denoted by A+) commute with A is that A+ can be expressed as a polynomial in A with scalar coefficients.