Variational Analysis in Spectral Decomposition Systems

This work is concerned with variational analysis of so-called spectral functions and spectral sets of matrices that only depend on eigenvalues of the matrix. Based on our previous work [H. T. Bùi, M. N. Bùi, and C. Clason, Convex analysis in spectral decomposition systems, arXiv 2503.14981] on convex analysis of such functions, we consider the question in the abstract framework of spectral decomposition systems, which covers a wide range of previously studied settings, including eigenvalue decomposition of Hermitian matrices and singular value decomposition of rectangular matrices, and allows deriving new results in more general settings such as normal decomposition systems and signed singular value decompositions. The main results characterize Fréchet and limiting normal cones to spectral sets as well as Fréchet, limiting, and Clarke subdifferentials of spectral functions in terms of the reduced functions. For the latter, we also characterize Fréchet differentiability. Finally, we obtain a generalization of Lidski\uı's theorem on the spectrum of additive perturbations of Hermitian matrices to arbitrary spectral decomposition systems.