@article{bibcite_14624, author = {Charles Dunkl and Piotr Gawron and J.A. Holbrook and Zbigniew Pucha{\l}a and Karol {\.Z}yczkowski}, title = {Numerical shadows: measures and densities on the numerical range}, abstract = {For any operator M acting on an N-dimensional Hilbert space H\_N we introduce its numerical shadow, which is a probability measure on the complex plane supported by the numerical range of M. The shadow of M at point z is defined as the probability that the inner product (Mu,u) is equal to z, where u stands for a random complex vector from H\_N, satisfying ||u||=1. In the case of N=2 the numerical shadow of a non-normal operator can be interpreted as a shadow of a hollow sphere projected on a plane. A similar interpretation is provided also for higher dimensions. For a hermitian M its numerical shadow forms a probability distribution on the real axis which is shown to be a one dimensional B-spline. In the case of a normal M the numerical shadow corresponds to a shadow of a transparent solid simplex in R^{N-1} onto the complex plane. Numerical shadow is found explicitly for Jordan matrices J\_N, direct sums of matrices and in all cases where the shadow is rotation invariant. Results concerning the moments of shadow measures play an important role. A general technique to study numerical shadow via the Cartesian decomposition is described, and a link of the numerical shadow of an operator to its higher-rank numerical range is emphasized.}, year = {2011}, journal = {Linear Algebra Appl.}, volume = {434}, pages = {2042{\textendash}2080}, issn = {0024-3795}, note = {arXiv:1010.4189 IF=1.005(2010);}, language = {eng}, }