Criteria for the stability of the finiteness property and for the uniqueness of Barabanov norms

A set of matrices is said to have the finiteness property if the maximal rate of exponential growth of long products of matrices drawn from that set is realised by a periodic product. The extent to which the finiteness property is prevalent among finite sets of matrices is the subject of ongoing research. In this article, we give a condition on a finite irreducible set of matrices which guarantees that the finiteness property holds not only for that set. but also for all sufficiently nearby sets of equal cardinality. We also prove a theorem giving conditions under which the Barabanov norm associated to a finite irreducible set of matrices is unique up to multiplication by a scalar, and show that in certain cases these conditions are also persistent under small perturbations. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.