Eigendecomposition of Block Tridiagonal Matrices

Abstract: Block tridiagonal matrices arise in applied mathematics, physics, and signal processing. Many applications require knowledge of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of block tridiagonal matrices, which can be prohibitively expensive for large matrix sizes. In this paper, we address the problem of the eigendecomposition of block tridiagonal matrices by studying a connection between their eigenvalues and zeros of appropriate matrix polynomials. We use this connection with matrix polynomials to derive a closed-form expression for the eigenvectors of block tridiagonal matrices, which eliminates the need for their direct calculation and can lead to a faster calculation of eigenvalues. We also demonstrate with an example that our work can lead to fast algorithms for the eigenvector expansion for block tridiagonal matrices.