Exploring rank‎, ‎determinant of tropical Toeplitz matrices and solvability of tropical Toeplitz linear system‎

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Mathematics, St. Joseph's College of Engineering, OMR, Chennai.

2 Department of Mathematics, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, 603203.

3 Department of Mathematics, Jeppiaar Engineering College, Jeppiaar Nagar, Chennai- 600025.

4 Department of Mathematics, St. Joseph's College of Engineering, OMR, Chennai.

Abstract
Toeplitz matrices exhibit a fascinating characteristic in that their elements are constant along each diagonal. This inherent structure not only gives rise to several intriguing theoretical properties but also holds significant importance due to its strong impact on practical applications. In tropical algebra, the tropical algebraic eigenvalues, ranks, and determinants of Toeplitz matrices can be obtained without computing the coefficients of their characteristic max-polynomials, which is a notable advantage of tropical Toeplitz matrices. In recent years, cryptographic algorithms based on tropical linear and nonlinear Toeplitz systems have been shown to be vulnerable to attacks that rely on solving tropical Toeplitz linear and nonlinear systems. Our research is motivated by the close relationship between Toeplitz and Hankel matrices, as well as by the important role their determinants play in various branches of mathematics. Additionally, our research aims to explore attack techniques for tropical Toeplitz-based cryptographic protocols, which involve solving tropical linear and nonlinear systems. In this paper, we analyze the determinants and various notions of rank for different classes of tropical Toeplitz matrices. We establish conditions under which the determinant is singular or nonsingular. Furthermore, we investigate the conditions under which tropical Toeplitz matrices are balanced or unbalanced. Finally, we identify conditions for the existence and uniqueness of solutions to tropical Toeplitz linear systems.

Keywords

Subjects

[1] Adler, M., Johansson, K., & van Moerbeke, P. (2022). A singular Toeplitz determinant and the discrete tacnode kernel for skew-Aztec rectangles. The Annals of Applied Probability, 32(2), 1234–1294.
[2] Akian, M., Gaubert, S., & Guterman, A. (2009). Linear independence over tropical semirings and beyond. Contemporary Mathematics, 495(1), 1–38.
[3] Amutha, B., & Perumal, R. (2025). A novel methodology for determining row and column ranks of tropical matrices. Applied Mathematics E-Notes, 25, 31–44. 
[4] Amutha, B., & Perumal, R. (2023). Public key exchange protocols based on tropical lower circulant and anti circulant matrices. AIMS Mathematics, 8(7), 17307–17334.

[5] Amutha, B., & Perumal, R. (2024). Two party key exchange protocol based on duo circulant matrices for the IoT environment. International Journal of Information Technology, 1–12. 
[6] Amutha, B., & Perumal, R. (2024). Maximal solution of tropical linear systems by normalization method. In International Conference on Recent Developments in Mathematics (pp. 185–195). 
[7] Amutha, B., & Perumal, R. (2023). The general maximal solution of some matrices over the tropical semiring. Asia Pacific Journal of Mathematics, 10(24), 1–20. 
[8] Anuradha, A., & Amutha, B. (2019). A study on metric dimension of some families of graphs. AIP Conference Proceedings, 2112, 020101. 
[9] Bernik, J., Drnovšek, R., Bukovšek, D. K., Košir, T., Omladiˇ c, M., & Radjavi, H. (2011). On semitransitive Jordan algebras of matrices. Journal of Algebra and Its Applications, 10(2), 319–333. 
[10] Bini, D. A., Iannazzo, B., & Meng, J. (2021). Algorithms for approximating means of semi-infinite quasi-Toeplitz matrices. In Geometric Science of Information (GSI 2021) (pp. 405–414). Springer. 
[11] Develin, M., Santos, F., & Sturmfels, B. (2005). On the rank of a tropical matrix. In Combinatorial and Computational Geometry (Vol. 52, pp. 213–242).
[12] Donatelli, M., Ferrari, P., Furci, I., Serra-Capizzano, S., & Sesana, D. (2021). Multigrid methods for block-Toeplitz linear systems: Convergence analysis and applications. Numerical Linear Algebra with Applications, 28(4), e2356.
[13] Engliš, M. (2007). Toeplitz operators and group representations. Journal of Fourier Analysis and Applications, 13, 243–265. 
[14] Euler, R. (2001). Characterizing bipartite Toeplitz graphs. Theoretical Computer Science, 263(1–2), 47–58. 
[15] Evans, R., Greene, J., & Van Veen, M. (2020). Nullities for a class of skew-symmetric Toeplitz band matrices. Linear Algebra and Its Applications, 593, 276–304. 
[16] Farenick, D. (2021). The operator system of Toeplitz matrices. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, Series B, 8(32), 999–1023. 
[17] Grenander, U., & Szegö, G. (1958). Toeplitz forms and their applications. University of California Press. 
[18] Haupt, J., Bajwa, W. U., Raz, G., & Nowak, R. (2010). Toeplitz compressed sensing matrices with applications to sparse channel estimation. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 56(11), 5862–5875. 
[19] Hayashi, S. (2022). An index theorem for quarter-plane Toeplitz operators via extended symbols and gapped invariants related to corner states. Communications in Mathematical Physics. 
[20] Heinig, G., & Rost, K. (2022). Algebraic methods for Toeplitz-like matrices and operators. De Gruyter. 
[21] Ioos, L., Lu, W., Ma, X., & Marinescu, G. (2020). Berezin–Toeplitz quantization for eigenstates of the Bochner Laplacian on symplectic manifolds. The Journal of Geometric Analysis, 30(3), 2615–2646. 
[22] Jackson, J., & Perumal, R. (2023). Another cryptanalysis on a tropical key exchange protocol. IAENG International Journal of Computer Science, 50(4). 
[23] Jackson, J., & Perumal, R. (2024). A public key exchange protocol using tropical determinant for IoT environment. In International Conference on Advanced Computing and Applications (pp. 81–93). Springer. 
[24] Jackson, J., & Perumal, R. (2024). A robust image encryption technique based on an improved fractional order chaotic map. Nonlinear Dynamics, 1–20. 
[25] Jackson, J., & Perumal, R. (2024). A tropical algebraic Collatz conjecture based key exchange protocol for IoT environment. International Journal of Information Technology, 1–9. 
[26] Jackson, J., & Perumal, R. (2024). An algebraic attack on the key exchange protocol based upon a modified tropical structure. Information and Computation, 303, 105259. 
[27] Jamshidvand, S., Ghalandarzadeh, S., Amiraslani, A., & Olia, F. (2020). On the maximal solution of a linear system over tropical semirings. Mathematical Sciences, 14(2), 147–157. 
[28] Kac, M. (1964). Some combinatorial aspects of the theory of Toeplitz matrices. In IBM Scientific Computing Symposium on Combinatorial Problems (pp. 199–208). 
[29] Kapralos, M. (2022). Taylor polynomials as an estimator for certain Toeplitz matrices. The Journal of Supercomputing, 78(11), 13245–13275. 
[30] Maclagan, D., & Sturmfels, B. (2021). Introduction to tropical geometry. American Mathematical Society. 
[31] Mojallal, S. A., Jung, J. H., Cheon, G. S., Kim, S. R., & Kang, B. (2022). Structural properties of Toeplitz graphs. Discrete Mathematics, 345(11), 113016. 
[32] Nishida, Y., Watanabe, S., & Watanabe, Y. (2021). Independence and orthogonality of algebraic eigenvectors over the max-plus algebra. arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.00285. 
[33] Olia, F., Ghalandarzadeh, S., Amiraslani, A., & Jamshidvand, S. (2020). Solving linear systems over tropical semirings through normalization method and its applications. Journal of Algebra and Its Applications, 2150159.
[34] Poland, D. (1996). Toeplitz matrices and random walks with memory. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications, 223(1–2), 113–124. 
[35] Ponmaheshkumar, A., & Perumal, R. (2024). Enhancing vehicle IoT security through matrix power functions in supertropical semiring. Mathematics in Engineering, Science & Aerospace, 15(1). 
[36] Ponmaheshkumar, A., & Perumal, R. (2024). Toeplitz matrices based key exchange protocol for the Internet of Things. International Journal of Information Technology, 16(1), 293–300.

[37] Price, G. L. (2022). On skew-symmetric Toeplitz matrices over finite fields with periodicity conditions. Linear Algebra and Its Applications, 642, 101–117.
[38] Strang, G. (1999). The discrete cosine transform, block Toeplitz matrices, and wavelets. In Lecture Notes in Pure and Applied Mathematics (pp. 517–536). 
[39] Tavakolipour, H., & Shakeri, F. (2018). On tropical eigenvalues of tridiagonal Toeplitz matrices. Linear Algebra and Its Applications, 539, 198–218. 
[40] Toft, J. (2012). The Bargmann transform on modulation and Gelfand–Shilov spaces, with applications to Toeplitz and pseudo-differential operators. Journal of Pseudo-Differential Operators and Applications, 3, 145–227. 
[41] Xuan, Y., & Lin, F. R. (2012). Numerical methods based on rational variable substitution for Wiener–Hopf equations of the second kind. Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, 236(14), 3528–3539. 
[42] Ye, K., & Lim, L. H. (2016). Every matrix is a product of Toeplitz matrices. Foundations of Computational Mathematics, 16, 577–598.


Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 29 May 2026

  • Receive Date 11 November 2025
  • Revise Date 17 February 2026
  • Accept Date 29 May 2026