%0 Journal Article %T Least-Squares Approximation by Elements from Matrix Orbits Achieved by Gradient Flows on Compact Lie Groups %A C. K. Li %A Y. T. Poon %A T. Schulte-Herbrueggen %J Mathematics %D 2008 %I arXiv %R 10.1090/S0025-5718-2010-02450-0 %X Let $S(A)$ denote the orbit of a complex or real matrix $A$ under a certain equivalence relation such as unitary similarity, unitary equivalence, unitary congruences etc. Efficient gradient-flow algorithms are constructed to determine the best approximation of a given matrix $A_0$ by the sum of matrices in $S(A_1), ..., S(A_N)$ in the sense of finding the Euclidean least-squares distance $$\min \{\|X_1+ ... + X_N - A_0\|: X_j \in S(A_j), j = 1, >..., N\}.$$ Connections of the results to different pure and applied areas are discussed. %U http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1817v1