A diagonalizable matrix has linearly independent eigenvectors. Since the set of nondiagonalizable matrices has measure zero, every matrix is the limit of diagonalizable matrices. We prove a quantitative version of this fact: every n x n complex matrix is within distance delta of a matrix whose eigenvectors have condition number poly(n)/delta, confirming a conjecture of E. B. Davies. The proof is based on regularizing the pseudospectrum with a complex Gaussian perturbation.

Joint work with J. Banks, A. Kulkarni, S. Mukherjee.