Determining point in level set, so Jacobian Matrix has a rank less than 2

differential-geometrylinear algebra

So I have found a Jacobian Matrix from the parametric curve,

$f(x,y,z)=(x^2+y^2+z^2,(x-1)^2+y^2)$

with the level set L=$\{(x,y,z)\in R^3\vert f(x,y,z)=(4,a^2)\}$.

I found the Jacobian Matrix to be as seen right below to the right.
\begin{pmatrix}
2x & 2y & 2z\\
2x-2 & 2y & 0\\
\end{pmatrix}

I have to find the points in L, which makes the rank of the Jacobian Matrix less than 2 while $0<a<3$.
I have converted it to reduced echelon form, but it doesn't seem like it's possible to determine any points that make the rank strictly less than 2, since there is always going to be a leading entrance with a 1, in the second row.
\begin{pmatrix}
1 & 0 & z\\
0 & 1 & \frac{z}{y}(x-1)\\
\end{pmatrix}

What is it I'm not understanding?

Best Answer

Be careful when row-reducing matrices that have variable entries. You need to examine cases in which you might have divided by zero separately. Be especially wary if you use automated solvers to do your row-reduction for you. Most of them don’t handle variable entries the way one might like and will happily spit out a full rank matrix even if some values of those variables actually produce a rank-deficient matrix. This is the case here: if you ask Mathematica to row-reduce your Jacobian, it will produce a full-rank matrix—in fact the one you have in your question—even though the Jacobian is obviously rank-one when $y=z=0$.

This problem can be solved without using row-reduction at all, which avoids all of these considerations (although row-reduction is pretty easy here). Your Jacobian is rank-deficient iff one row is a scalar multiple of the other, which can be expressed as $(2x,2y,2z)\times(2x-2,2y,0)=0$. This will give you three equations in $x$, $y$ and $z$, although one of them will be redundant. If you prefer not to take advantage of special features of $\mathbb R^3$, then you can instead examine the three $2\times2$ minors of the Jacobian: it is rank-deficient iff they all vanish. This condition in fact generates same three equations for your Jacobian as does the cross-product equation above.