Eigenvalues are a special set of scalars associated with a linear system of equations (i.e., a matrix equation) that are sometimes also known as characteristic roots, characteristic values (Hoffman and Kunze 1971), proper values, or latent roots (Marcus and Minc 1988, p. 144).
The determination of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a system is extremely important in physics and engineering, where it is equivalent to matrix diagonalization and arises in such common applications as stability analysis, the physics of rotating bodies, and small oscillations of vibrating systems, to name only a few. Each eigenvalue is paired with a corresponding so-called eigenvector (or, in general, a corresponding right eigenvector and a corresponding left eigenvector; there is no analogous distinction between left and right for eigenvalues).
The decomposition of a square matrix A into eigenvalues and eigenvectors is known in this work as eigen decomposition, and the fact that this decomposition is always possible as long as the matrix consisting of the eigenvectors of A is square is known as the eigen decomposition theorem.
The Lanczos algorithm is an algorithm for computing the eigenvalues and eigenvectors for large symmetric sparse matrices.
Let A be a linear transformation represented by a matrix A. If there is a vector X in R^n!=0 such tha