cyclic decomposition theorem
Let be a field, a finite dimensional vector space over and a linear operator over . Call a subspace
-admissible if is -invariant and for any polynomial
with for , there is a such that .
Let be a proper -admissible subspace of . There are non zero vectors in with respective annihilator polynomials such that
- 1.
(See the cyclic subspace definition)
- 2.
divides for every
Moreover, the integer and the minimal polynomials (http://planetmath.org/MinimalPolynomialEndomorphism) are uniquely determined by (1),(2) and the fact that none of is zero.
This is “one of the deepest results in linear algebra” (Hoffman & Kunze)