Problem

Source: Romania National Olympiad 2023

Tags: linear algebra, Nilpotent, rank



Let $n$ be a natural number $n \geq 2$ and matrices $A,B \in M_{n}(\mathbb{C}),$ with property $A^2 B = A.$ a) Prove that $(AB - BA)^2 = O_{n}.$ b) Show that for all natural number $k$, $k \leq \frac{n}{2}$ there exist matrices $A,B \in M_{n}(\mathbb{C})$ with property stated in the problem such that $rank(AB - BA) = k.$