Sign properties of Metzler matrices with applications

Abstract: Several results about sign properties of Metzler matrices are obtained. It is first established that checking the sign-stability of a Metzler sign-matrix can be either characterized in terms of the Hurwitz stability of the unit sign-matrix in the corresponding qualitative class, or in terms the negativity of the diagonal elements of the Metzler sign-matrix and the acyclicity of the associated directed graph. Similar results are obtained for the case of Metzler block-matrices and Metzler mixed-matrices, the latter being a class of Metzler matrices containing both sign- and real-type entries. The problem of assessing the sign-stability of the convex hull of a finite and summable family of Metzler matrices is also solved, and a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of common Lyapunov functions for all the matrices in the convex hull is obtained. The concept of sign-stability is then generalized to the concept of Ker$+(B)$-sign-stability, a problem that arises in the analysis of certain jump Markov processes. A sufficient condition for the Ker$+(B)$-sign-stability of Metzler sign-matrices is obtained and formulated using inverses of sign-matrices and the concept of $L^+$-matrices. Several applications of the results are discussed in the last section.