Loewner matrix — where it appears
Named by 3 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.
A model that is a rational function
A state matrix has a hundred thousand rows and the thing anyone wants from it is a function of one complex variable. The number that says how much of that size was ever the complexity is a rank — and the rank a derivation writes down cannot be computed, while one built from samples alone can.
A model with no matrices behind it
Twenty-four numbers — values of a transfer function at twenty-four points — produce a sixth-order model of a forty-state system that passes through every sample to 10⁻¹² and matches the function it never saw to 10⁻⁹. Noise of 10⁻¹⁰ on those numbers takes the rank decision's gap from 10⁸ to 4.
The points the algorithm chose
A rational approximant whose support points are picked by its own residual clusters geometrically at a branch point nobody named — recovering by measurement the rule a hand-built approximant is given. At degree ten it is seven hundred and fifty times more accurate than the same form with its points spread evenly.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
Adaptive interpolationData driven realisationMcMillan degreeTransfer functionApproximation before linearisationBarycentric formBranch pointCondition numberDescriptor systemExact ground truthGreedy algorithmInterpolation