Total-positivity preservers (1711.10468v3)

Abstract: We prove that the only entrywise transforms of rectangular matrices which preserve total positivity or total non-negativity are either constant or linear. This follows from an extended classification of preservers of these two properties for matrices of fixed dimension. We also prove that the same assertions hold upon working only with symmetric matrices; for total-positivity preservers our proofs proceed through solving two totally positive completion problems.