I am given an Hermitian positive definite matrix $$D=\left(\begin{matrix}A&\overline{C}^T\\C&B\end{matrix}\right)$$
$A$ and $B$ are square matrices. The task is to prove the following inequalities:
$\det(D)\leq\det(A)\det(B)\\\det(D)\leq\prod_{i=1}^{n}(d_{ii})$
All I can see is that $A,B$ are also Hermitian, and that determinant is equal to product of eigenvalues for $D, A, B$ since they are Hermitian, and those are positive since matrix is positive definite, and I have no further idea. Maybe you could give an advice or kind of hint.
Thanks in advance!
Best Answer
Hints:
(1) If $D$ is positive semidefinite, so are $A$ and $B$.
(2) If your first inequality holds, the second follows from it by induction. (The second inequality is known as Hadamard's inequality and can be proved more easily than the first.)
(3) Using the Schur complement, $\det(D)=\det(A) \det(B - C^*A^{-1}C)$ and $B-C^*A^{-1}C$ is positive semidefinite.
(4) If $B=B_1+C_1$ where $B_1$ and $C_1$ are positive semidefinite, then $\det(B) \ge \det(B_1)$.