A Strict Gap Between Relaxed and Partition-Constrained Spectral Compression in a Six-State Lumpable Markov Chain

This paper studies a finite reversible lumpable Markov chain for which relaxed spectral compression yields a larger determinant than partition-constrained compression. For a symmetric six-state lumpable chain and the positive operator $T=P^2$, I compare the relaxed benchmark \begin{equation*} \mathfrak D^{\mathrm{rel}}_3(T):=\sup_{U^*U=I_3}\det(U^*TU) \end{equation*} and the partition-constrained benchmark \begin{equation*} \sup_{\mathcal A\,\mathrm{3\text{-}partition}}\det Q_{\mathcal A}(T), \qquad Q_{\mathcal A}(T)=H_{\mathcal A}^*TH_{\mathcal A}. \end{equation*} Here the partition-constrained benchmark is the compression induced by normalized indicator vectors of genuine partitions of the state space. I derive closed formulas for the two analytically central partition families, prove strict upper bounds for both in a local-mode-dominated regime, and combine these bounds with an exhaustive enumeration of all $90$ partitions into three nonempty cells in an explicit six-state model. For this model, one obtains a strict global gap: \begin{equation*} \sup_{\mathcal A}\det Q_{\mathcal A}(T)