The Term and Stochastic Ranks of a Matrix

The term rank p of a matrix is the order of the largest minor which has a non-zero term in the expansion of its determinant. In a recent paper (1), the authors made the following conjecture. If S is the sum of all the entries in a square matrix of non-negative real numbers and if M is the maximum row or column sum, then the term rank p of the matrix is greater than or equal to the least integer which is greater than or equal to S/M. A generalization of this conjecture is proved in § 2.The term doubly stochastic has been used to describe a matrix of nonnegative entries in which the row and column sums are all equal to one. In this paper, by a doubly stochastic matrix, the, authors mean a matrix of non-negative entries in which the row and column sums are all equal to the same real number T.