M-tensors and nonsingular M-tensors

The M-matrix is an important concept in matrix theory, and has many applications. Recently, this concept has been extended to higher order tensors [18]. In this paper, we establish some important properties of M-tensors and nonsingular M-tensors. An M-tensor is a Z-tensor. We show that a Z-tensor is a nonsingular M-tensor if and only if it is semi-positive. Thus, a nonsingular M-tensor has all positive diagonal entries; an M-tensor, regarding as the limit of a sequence of nonsingular M-tensors, has all nonnegative diagonal entries. We introduce even-order monotone tensors and present their spectral properties. In matrix theory, a Z-matrix is a nonsingular M-matrix if and only if it is monotone. This is no longer true in the case of higher order tensors. We show that an even-order monotone Z-tensor is an even-order nonsingular M-tensor, but not vice versa. An example of an even-order nontrivial monotone Z-tensor is also given.