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Given that $A$ is symmetric $nxn$ matrix.

Show that $\lim_{k \rightarrow \infty} (x^tA^{2k}x)^{1/k}$ exists for all $x \in R^n$ and possible limit values are the eigenvalues of A.

Since A is symmetric you can find an orthonormal basis. So A is similar to the diagonal matrix B. So you get $\lim_{k \rightarrow \infty} (\sum_{i=0}^n x_i^2 \lambda_i^{2k})^{1/k}$. So I can show that this last thing is bounded above and below, but it isn't monotone in k, so how should I show that it's convergent and find what it could possibly converge to?

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Hint: Of the $\lambda_i$ whose corresponding $x_i$ are nonzero, suppose $\lambda_l$ is the largest eigenvalue in absolute value. Then $\sum_{i=0}^n x_i^2 \lambda_i^{2k}$ is dominated by the $i=l$ term.

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    Assume for convenience $|\lambda_1|$ is the largest, with $|\lambda_j\| \le r |\lambda_1|$ and $|x_i| \le s |x_1|$ for j > 1 where 0 < r < 1. Then $x_1^2 \lambda_1^{2k} \le \sum_{j=1}^k x_j^2 \lambda_j^{2k} \le (1 + (n-1) s^2 r^{2k}) \lambda_1^{2k}$ As $k \to \infty$, $r^{2k} \to 0$ ...2012-09-16