Scaffoldings of totally positive matrices and line insertion

Abstract

Given a totally positive matrix, can one insert a line (row or column) between two given lines while maintaining total positivity? This question was first posed and solved by Johnson and Smith who gave an algorithm that results in one possible line insertion. In this work, we revisit this problem. First, we show that every totally positive matrix can be associated with a certain vertex-weighted graph in such a way that the entries of the matrix are equal to sums over certain paths in this graph. We call this graph a scaffolding of the matrix. We then use this to give a complete characterization of all possible line insertions as the strongly positive solutions to a given homogeneous system of linear equations.