The β maps: Strong clustering and distribution results on the complex unit circle

In the current work, we study the eigenvalue distribution results of a class of non-normal matrix-sequences which may be viewed as a low rank perturbation, depending on a parameter β>1, of the basic Toeplitz matrix-sequence {Tn(eiθ)}n∈N, i2=−1. The latter of which has obviously all eigenvalues equal to zero for any matrix order n, while for the matrix-sequence under consideration we will show a strong clustering on the complex unit circle. A detailed discussion on the outliers is also provided. The problem appears mathematically innocent, but it is indeed quite challenging since all the classical machinery for deducing the eigenvalue clustering does not cover the considered case. In the derivations, we resort to a trick used for the spectral analysis of the Google matrix plus several tools from complex analysis. We only mention that the problem is not an academic curiosity and in fact stems from problems in dynamical systems and number theory. Additionally, we also provide numerical experiments in high precision, a distribution analysis in the Weyl sense concerning both eigenvalues and singular values is given, and more results are sketched for the limit case of β=1.