Evaluation of minors associated to weighing matrices Original Research Article

In the present paper we focus our research on calculating minors of weighing matrices of order n and weight n − k, denoted by W(n, n − k). We provide analytical determinant computations, counting techniques for specifying the existence of certain submatrices inside a W(n, n − k) and an algorithm for computing the (n − j) × (n − j) minors of a W(n, n − k), which is realized with the notion of symbolic manipulation. These results are valid of general n. The ideas presented in this work can be used as the fundamental basis, on which the calculation of minors of other weighing matrices, and in general of orthogonal matrices, can be developed. An application of the derived formulas to an interesting problem of Numerical Analysis, the growth problem, is also presented.