19.2: The Circulant Matrix- Nature of its Eigenstates
( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)
The matrix we’ve constructed above has a very special property: each row is identical to the preceding row with the elements moved over one place, that is, it has the form
(c0c1c2c3c3c0c1c2c2c3c0c1c1c2c3c0)
Such matrices are called circulants, and their properties are well known. In particular, we’ll show that the eigenvectors have the form (1,ωj,ω2j,ω3j,…,ωN−1j)T where ωNj=1.

Recall the roots of the equation zN=1 are N points equally spaced around the unit circle, e2πin/N,n=0,1,2,…N−1
The standard mathematical notation is to label these points 1,ω1,ω2,ω3,…,ωN−1 as shown in the figure, but notice that ωj=ωj1