Generic eigenstructures of Hermitian pencils

Abstract: We obtain the generic complete eigenstructures of complex Hermitian $n\times n$ matrix pencils with rank at most $r$ (with $r\leq n$). To do this, we prove that the set of such pencils is the union of a finite number of bundle closures, where each bundle is the set of complex Hermitian $n\times n$ pencils with the same complete eigenstructure (up to the specific values of the finite eigenvalues). We also obtain the explicit number of such bundles and their codimension. The cases $r=n$, corresponding to general Hermitian pencils, and $r<n$ exhibit surprising differences, since for $r<n$ the generic complete eigenstructures can contain only real eigenvalues, while for $r=n$ they can contain real and non-real eigenvalues. Moreover, we will see that the sign characteristic of the real eigenvalues plays a relevant role for determining the generic eigenstructures of Hermitian pencils.