Properties
With the exception of the identity matrix, an idempotent matrix is singular; that is, its number of independent rows (and columns) is less than its number of rows (and columns). This can be seen from writing MM = M, assuming that M has full rank (is non-singular), and pre-multiplying by M−1 to obtain M = M−1M = I.
When an idempotent matrix is subtracted from the identity matrix, the result is also idempotent. This holds since = I − M − M + M2 = I − M − M + M = I − M.
An idempotent matrix is always diagonalizable and its eigenvalues are either 0 or 1. The trace of an idempotent matrix — the sum of the elements on its main diagonal — equals the rank of the matrix and thus is always an integer. This provides an easy way of computing the rank, or alternatively an easy way of determining the trace of a matrix whose elements are not specifically known (which is helpful in econometrics, for example, in establishing the degree of bias in using a sample variance as an estimate of a population variance).
Read more about this topic: Idempotent Matrix
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