The block diagonal system having the eigenvalues along the
diagonal and ones in some of the superdiagonal elements (which serve
to couple repeated eigenvalues) is called Jordan canonical
form. Each block size corresponds to the multiplicity of the repeated
pole. As an example, a pole
of multiplicity
could give
rise to the following
Jordan block:
The ones along the superdiagonal serve to couple the states corresponding to
or even three Jordan blocks of order 1. The number of Jordan blocks associated with a single pole
Interestingly, neither Matlab nor Octave seem to have a numerical function for computing the Jordan canonical form of a matrix. Matlab will try to do it symbolically when the matrix entries are given as exact rational numbers (ratios of integers) by the jordan function, which requires the Maple symbolic mathematics toolbox. Numerically, it is generally difficult to distinguish between poles that are repeated exactly, and poles that are merely close together. The residuez function sets a numerical threshold below which poles are treated as repeated.