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Operator Algebras
In functional analysis, a branch of mathematics, an operator algebra is an algebra of continuous linear operators on a topological vector space, with the multiplication given by the composition of mappings. The results obtained in the study of operator algebras are phrased in algebraic terms, while the techniques used are highly analytic.''Theory of Operator Algebras I'' By Masamichi Takesaki, Springer 2012, p vi Although the study of operator algebras is usually classified as a branch of functional analysis, it has direct applications to representation theory, differential geometry, quantum statistical mechanics, quantum information, and quantum field theory. Overview Operator algebras can be used to study arbitrary sets of operators with little algebraic relation ''simultaneously''. From this point of view, operator algebras can be regarded as a generalization of spectral theory of a single operator. In general operator algebras are non-commutative rings. An opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Functional Analysis
Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (e.g. inner product, norm, topology, etc.) and the linear functions defined on these spaces and respecting these structures in a suitable sense. The historical roots of functional analysis lie in the study of spaces of functions and the formulation of properties of transformations of functions such as the Fourier transform as transformations defining continuous, unitary etc. operators between function spaces. This point of view turned out to be particularly useful for the study of differential and integral equations. The usage of the word '' functional'' as a noun goes back to the calculus of variations, implying a function whose argument is a function. The term was first used in Hadamard's 1910 book on that subject. However, the general concept of a functional had previously been introduced in 1887 by the I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ring (mathematics)
In mathematics, rings are algebraic structures that generalize fields: multiplication need not be commutative and multiplicative inverses need not exist. In other words, a ''ring'' is a set equipped with two binary operations satisfying properties analogous to those of addition and multiplication of integers. Ring elements may be numbers such as integers or complex numbers, but they may also be non-numerical objects such as polynomials, square matrices, functions, and power series. Formally, a ''ring'' is an abelian group whose operation is called ''addition'', with a second binary operation called ''multiplication'' that is associative, is distributive over the addition operation, and has a multiplicative identity element. (Some authors use the term " " with a missing i to refer to the more general structure that omits this last requirement; see .) Whether a ring is commutative (that is, whether the order in which two elements are multiplied might change the result ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-adjoint
In mathematics, and more specifically in abstract algebra, an element ''x'' of a *-algebra is self-adjoint if x^*=x. A self-adjoint element is also Hermitian, though the reverse doesn't necessarily hold. A collection ''C'' of elements of a star-algebra is self-adjoint if it is closed under the involution operation. For example, if x^*=y then since y^*=x^=x in a star-algebra, the set is a self-adjoint set even though ''x'' and ''y'' need not be self-adjoint elements. In functional analysis, a linear operator A : H \to H on a Hilbert space is called self-adjoint if it is equal to its own adjoint ''A''. See self-adjoint operator for a detailed discussion. If the Hilbert space is finite-dimensional and an orthonormal basis has been chosen, then the operator ''A'' is self-adjoint if and only if the matrix describing ''A'' with respect to this basis is Hermitian, i.e. if it is equal to its own conjugate transpose. Hermitian matrices are also called self-adjoint. In a dagger c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Involution (mathematics)
In mathematics, an involution, involutory function, or self-inverse function is a function that is its own inverse, : for all in the domain of . Equivalently, applying twice produces the original value. General properties Any involution is a bijection. The identity map is a trivial example of an involution. Examples of nontrivial involutions include negation (x \mapsto -x), reciprocation (x \mapsto 1/x), and complex conjugation (z \mapsto \bar z) in arithmetic; reflection, half-turn rotation, and circle inversion in geometry; complementation in set theory Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concern ...; and reciprocal ciphers such as the ROT13 transformation and the Beaufort cipher, Beaufort polyalphabetic cipher. The Function composition, composition of two invol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermitian Adjoint
In mathematics, specifically in operator theory, each linear operator A on a Euclidean vector space defines a Hermitian adjoint (or adjoint) operator A^* on that space according to the rule :\langle Ax,y \rangle = \langle x,A^*y \rangle, where \langle \cdot,\cdot \rangle is the inner product on the vector space. The adjoint may also be called the Hermitian conjugate or simply the Hermitian after Charles Hermite. It is often denoted by in fields like physics, especially when used in conjunction with bra–ket notation in quantum mechanics. In finite dimensions where operators are represented by matrices, the Hermitian adjoint is given by the conjugate transpose (also known as the Hermitian transpose). The above definition of an adjoint operator extends verbatim to bounded linear operators on Hilbert spaces H. The definition has been further extended to include unbounded '' densely defined'' operators whose domain is topologically dense in—but not necessarily equal to—H. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operator Norm
In mathematics, the operator norm measures the "size" of certain linear operators by assigning each a real number called its . Formally, it is a norm defined on the space of bounded linear operators between two given normed vector spaces. Introduction and definition Given two normed vector spaces V and W (over the same base field, either the real numbers \R or the complex numbers \Complex), a linear map A : V \to W is continuous if and only if there exists a real number c such that \, Av\, \leq c \, v\, \quad \mbox v\in V. The norm on the left is the one in W and the norm on the right is the one in V. Intuitively, the continuous operator A never increases the length of any vector by more than a factor of c. Thus the image of a bounded set under a continuous operator is also bounded. Because of this property, the continuous linear operators are also known as bounded operators. In order to "measure the size" of A, one can take the infimum of the numbers c such that the above ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilbert Space
In mathematics, Hilbert spaces (named after David Hilbert) allow generalizing the methods of linear algebra and calculus from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise naturally and frequently in mathematics and physics, typically as function spaces. Formally, a Hilbert space is a vector space equipped with an inner product that defines a distance function for which the space is a complete metric space. The earliest Hilbert spaces were studied from this point of view in the first decade of the 20th century by David Hilbert, Erhard Schmidt, and Frigyes Riesz. They are indispensable tools in the theories of partial differential equations, quantum mechanics, Fourier analysis (which includes applications to signal processing and heat transfer), and ergodic theory (which forms the mathematical underpinning of thermodynamics). John von Neumann coined the term ''Hilbert space'' for the abstract concept that u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Separable Space
In mathematics, a topological space is called separable if it contains a countable, dense subset; that is, there exists a sequence \_^ of elements of the space such that every nonempty open subset of the space contains at least one element of the sequence. Like the other axioms of countability, separability is a "limitation on size", not necessarily in terms of cardinality (though, in the presence of the Hausdorff axiom, this does turn out to be the case; see below) but in a more subtle topological sense. In particular, every continuous function on a separable space whose image is a subset of a Hausdorff space is determined by its values on the countable dense subset. Contrast separability with the related notion of second countability, which is in general stronger but equivalent on the class of metrizable spaces. First examples Any topological space that is itself finite or countably infinite is separable, for the whole space is a countable dense subset of itself. An impo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banach Space
In mathematics, more specifically in functional analysis, a Banach space (pronounced ) is a complete normed vector space. Thus, a Banach space is a vector space with a metric that allows the computation of vector length and distance between vectors and is complete in the sense that a Cauchy sequence of vectors always converges to a well-defined limit that is within the space. Banach spaces are named after the Polish mathematician Stefan Banach, who introduced this concept and studied it systematically in 1920–1922 along with Hans Hahn and Eduard Helly. Maurice René Fréchet was the first to use the term "Banach space" and Banach in turn then coined the term " Fréchet space." Banach spaces originally grew out of the study of function spaces by Hilbert, Fréchet, and Riesz earlier in the century. Banach spaces play a central role in functional analysis. In other areas of analysis, the spaces under study are often Banach spaces. Definition A Banach space is a complete n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bounded Operator
In functional analysis and operator theory, a bounded linear operator is a linear transformation L : X \to Y between topological vector spaces (TVSs) X and Y that maps bounded subsets of X to bounded subsets of Y. If X and Y are normed vector spaces (a special type of TVS), then L is bounded if and only if there exists some M > 0 such that for all x \in X, \, Lx\, _Y \leq M \, x\, _X. The smallest such M is called the operator norm of L and denoted by \, L\, . A bounded operator between normed spaces is continuous and vice versa. The concept of a bounded linear operator has been extended from normed spaces to all topological vector spaces. Outside of functional analysis, when a function f : X \to Y is called " bounded" then this usually means that its image f(X) is a bounded subset of its codomain. A linear map has this property if and only if it is identically 0. Consequently, in functional analysis, when a linear operator is called "bounded" then it is never meant in thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distribution (mathematics)
Distributions, also known as Schwartz distributions or generalized functions, are objects that generalize the classical notion of functions in mathematical analysis. Distributions make it possible to differentiate functions whose derivatives do not exist in the classical sense. In particular, any locally integrable function has a distributional derivative. Distributions are widely used in the theory of partial differential equations, where it may be easier to establish the existence of distributional solutions than classical solutions, or where appropriate classical solutions may not exist. Distributions are also important in physics and engineering where many problems naturally lead to differential equations whose solutions or initial conditions are singular, such as the Dirac delta function. A function f is normally thought of as on the in the function domain by "sending" a point x in its domain to the point f(x). Instead of acting on points, distribution theory reinterp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudo-differential Operator
In mathematical analysis a pseudo-differential operator is an extension of the concept of differential operator. Pseudo-differential operators are used extensively in the theory of partial differential equations and quantum field theory, e.g. in mathematical models that include ultrametric pseudo-differential equations in a non-Archimedean space. History The study of pseudo-differential operators began in the mid 1960s with the work of Kohn, Nirenberg, Hörmander, Unterberger and Bokobza. They played an influential role in the second proof of the Atiyah–Singer index theorem via K-theory. Atiyah and Singer thanked Hörmander for assistance with understanding the theory of pseudo-differential operators. Motivation Linear differential operators with constant coefficients Consider a linear differential operator with constant coefficients, : P(D) := \sum_\alpha a_\alpha \, D^\alpha which acts on smooth functions u with compact support in R''n''. This operator can be writte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
