A quiver invariant theoretic approach to Radial Isotropy and Paulsen's Problem for matrix frames

In this paper, we view matrix frames as representations of quivers and study them within the general framework of quiver invariant theory. We are thus led to consider the large class of semi-stable matrix frames. Within this class, we are particularly interested in radial isotropic and Parseval matrix frames. Using methods from quiver invariant theory [CD19], we first prove a far reaching generalization of Barthe’s Radial Isotropy Theorem [Bar98] to matrix frames (see Theorems 1(3) and 29). With this tool at our disposal, we provide a quiver invariant theoretic approach to the Paulsen problem for matrix frames. We show in Theorem 2 that for any given $\epsilon$-nearly equal-norm Parseval frame $\mathcal{F}$ of $n$ matrices with $d$ rows there exists an equal-norm Parseval frame $\mathcal{W}$ of $n$ matrices with $d$ rows such that ${\mathsf{d}\mathsf{i}\mathsf{s}\mathsf{t}}^2(\mathcal{F},\mathcal{W})\le 46ϵd^2$.