%0 Journal Article %T A Matrix Hyperbolic Cosine Algorithm and Applications %A Anastasios Zouzias %J Computer Science %D 2011 %I arXiv %R 10.1007/978-3-642-31594-7_71 %X In this paper, we generalize Spencer's hyperbolic cosine algorithm to the matrix-valued setting. We apply the proposed algorithm to several problems by analyzing its computational efficiency under two special cases of matrices; one in which the matrices have a group structure and an other in which they have rank-one. As an application of the former case, we present a deterministic algorithm that, given the multiplication table of a finite group of size $n$, it constructs an expanding Cayley graph of logarithmic degree in near-optimal O(n^2 log^3 n) time. For the latter case, we present a fast deterministic algorithm for spectral sparsification of positive semi-definite matrices, which implies an improved deterministic algorithm for spectral graph sparsification of dense graphs. In addition, we give an elementary connection between spectral sparsification of positive semi-definite matrices and element-wise matrix sparsification. As a consequence, we obtain improved element-wise sparsification algorithms for diagonally dominant-like matrices. %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.2793v2