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I am trying to find out if the known QR algorithm to find the eigenvalues of a real matrix, which can be found in the book Fundamentals of Matrix Computations, can also be used for complex matrices and still runs in $O(n^3)$?

Also, if yes, does anyone know any reference for it?

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    $\begingroup$ I'm not familiar with the book you mention, but if you're talking about householder qr, the answer is yes. See the lapack routine ZGEQR2, netlib.org/lapack/explore-3.1.1-html/zgeqr2.f.html#ZGEQR2.1 $\endgroup$
    – vibe
    Dec 4, 2019 at 22:54
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    $\begingroup$ Given the "eigenvalues" tag, the OP is probably referring to the (Francis) QR iteration for diagonalization, not the Householder QR factorization. $\endgroup$ Dec 5, 2019 at 14:50

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If you're lucky enough to have a complex-hermitian $\mathbf A$, the eigendecomposition of $\mathbf A$ can be computed using basically the same algorithmic machinery as the real-symmetric case: an initial/frontend pass to reduce to tridiagonal form $\mathbf T$ via Householder reflections, followed by shifted-QR iterations on $\mathbf T$. Notably, a complex-hermitian $\mathbf A$ can be orthogonally reduced to a real-symmetric tridiagonal $\mathbf T$! This enables extensive reuse of the innermost shifted-QR routines.

Unfortunately, the situation is less rosy for real-nonsymmetric $\mathbf A$ or complex-nonhermitian $\mathbf A$. In fact, you might not even want the eigendecomposition here, but rather the Schur decomposition. It too displays the eigenvalues but can be more stable/accurate because it uses only orthogonal transformations. And the Schur vectors are often just as useful as the eigenvectors depending upon the application.

In the real-nonsymmetric case, the best you can do with the Householder frontend is a reduction to Hessenberg form, then you perform shifted QR iterations on that. The shifting strategy is messy. In the symmetric case a rank-2 shift is robust because the eigenvalues can only be pure-real or conjugate-pairs .. but this doesn't hold in the nonsymmetric case. You have to use higher-rank shifts ("multishifted QR"). Fortunately these algorithmic difficulties do not jeopardize the overall complexity, it's still $\mathcal O(n^3)$

I think the complex-nonhermitian case is worse still, as I don't believe the Householder frontend can reduce a general complex matrix to real-Hessenberg form using unitary transformations (though I admit I am not certain of this). I would expect the inner shifted QR iteration to be very messy (mainly due to complexity of shifting strategy - for this kind of input the eigenvalues could be anywhere). I believe this is still $\mathcal O(n^3)$ too.

A good entry point for eigendecomposition of general complex $\mathbf A$ would be LAPACK's ZGEEV routine - just be aware it's a pretty deep hole.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the answer! I am just doubting that because I could only find references that introduce the Implicit shift QR algorithm for real matrices. $\endgroup$
    – danft
    Dec 6, 2019 at 0:49
  • $\begingroup$ I found this article by Watkins that seems to develop the algorithm for the complex case as well. $\endgroup$
    – danft
    Dec 12, 2019 at 17:19

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