Sharp estimate on the resolvent of a finite-dimensional contraction

Abstract: We compute an asymptotic formula for the supremum of the resolvent norm ($\zeta$ -T ) -1 over |$\zeta$| $\ge$ 1 and contractions T acting on an n-dimensional Hilbert space, whose spectral radius does not exceed a given r $\in$ (0, 1). We prove that this supremum is achieved on the unit circle by an analytic Toeplitz matrix.