Person: Sheriff, Jamin
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Sheriff
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Sheriff, Jamin
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Publication The Convexity of Quadratic Maps and the Controllability of Coupled Systems(2013-09-16) Sheriff, Jamin; Khaneja, Navin; Brockett, Roger; Hu, EvelynA quadratic form on \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is a map of the form \(x \mapsto x^T M x\), where M is a symmetric \(n \times n\) matrix. A quadratic map from \(\mathbb{R}^n\) to \(\mathbb{R}^m\) is a map, all m of whose components are quadratic forms. One of the two central questions in this thesis is this: when is the image of a quadratic map \(Q: \mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^m\) a convex subset of \(\mathbb{R}^m\)? This question has intrinsic interest; despite being only a degree removed from linear maps, quadratic maps are not well understood. However, the convexity properties of quadratic maps have practical consequences as well: underlying every semidefinite program is a quadratic map, and the convexity of the image of that map determines the nature of the solutions to the semidefinite program. Quadratic maps that map into \(\mathbb{R}^2\) and \(\mathbb{R}^3\) have been studied before (in (Dines, 1940) and (Calabi, 1964) respectively). The Roundness Theorem, the first of the two principal results in this thesis, is a sufficient and (almost) necessary condition for a quadratic map \(Q: \mathbb{R}^n \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^m\) to have a convex image when \(m \geq 4\), \(n \geq m\) and \(n \not= m + 1\). Concomitant with the Roundness Theorem is an important lemma: when \(n < m\), quadratic maps from \(\mathbb{R}^n\) to \(\mathbb{R}^m\)seldom have convex images. This second result in this thesis is a controllability condition for bilinear systems defined on direct products of the form \(\mathcal{G} \times\mathcal{G}\), where \(\mathcal{G}\) is a simple Lie group. The condition is this: a bilinear system defined on \(\mathcal{G} \times\mathcal{G}\) is not controllable if and only if the Lie algebra generated by the system’s vector fields is the graph of some automorphism of \(\mathcal{g}\), the Lie algebra of \(\mathcal{G}\).