On (conditional) positive semidefiniteness in a matrix-valued context

Abstract

In a nutshell, we intend to extend Schoenberg's classical theorem connecting conditionally positive semidefinite functions $F\colon \mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{C}$, $n \in \mathbb{N}$, and their positive semidefinite exponentials $\exp(tF)$, $t > 0$, to the case of matrix-valued functions $F \colon \mathbb{R}^n \to \mathbb{C}^{m \times m}$, $m \in \mathbb{N}$. Moreover, we study the closely associated property that $\exp(t F(- i \nabla))$, $t>0$, is positivity preserving and its failure to extend directly in the matrix-valued context.