Conjugate transpose
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In mathematics, the conjugate transpose, Hermitian transpose, or adjoint matrix of an m-by-n matrix A with complex entries is the n-by-m matrix A* obtained from A by taking the transpose and then taking the complex conjugate of each entry. The conjugate transpose is formally defined by
where the subscripts denote the i,j-th entry, for 1 ≤ i ≤ n and 1 ≤ j ≤ m, and the overbar denotes a scalar complex conjugate. (The complex conjugate of a + bi, where a and b are reals, is a − bi.)
This definition can also be written as
where denotes the transpose and denotes the matrix with complex conjugated entries.
Other names for the conjugate transpose of a matrix are Hermitian conjugate, or transjugate. The conjugate transpose of a matrix A can be denoted by any of these symbols:
- or , commonly used in linear algebra
- , universally used in quantum mechanics
- , although this symbol is more commonly used for the Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse
Note that in some contexts can be used to denote the matrix with complex conjugated entries so care must be taken not to confuse notations.
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[edit] Example
If
then
[edit] Basic remarks
If the entries of A are real, then A* coincides with the transpose AT of A. It is often useful to think of square complex matrices as "generalized complex numbers", and of the conjugate transpose as a generalization of complex conjugation.
A square matrix A with entries aij is called
- Hermitian or self-adjoint if A = A*, i.e., ;
- skew Hermitian or antihermitian if A = −A*, i.e., ;
- normal if A*A = AA*.
Even if A is not square, the two matrices A*A and AA* are both Hermitian and in fact positive semi-definite matrices.
The adjoint matrix A* should not be confused with the adjugate adj(A) (which is also sometimes called "adjoint").
[edit] Motivation
The conjugate transpose can be motivated by noting that complex numbers can be usefully represented by 2×2 skew-symmetric matrices, obeying matrix addition and multiplication:
An m-by-n matrix of complex numbers could therefore equally well be represented by a 2m-by-2n matrix of real numbers. It therefore arises very naturally that when transposing such a matrix which is made up of complex numbers, one may in the process also have to take the complex conjugate of each entry.
[edit] Properties of the conjugate transpose
- (A + B)* = A* + B* for any two matrices A and B of the same dimensions.
- (rA)* = r*A* for any complex number r and any matrix A. Here r* refers to the complex conjugate of r.
- (AB)* = B*A* for any m-by-n matrix A and any n-by-p matrix B. Note that the order of the factors is reversed.
- (A*)* = A for any matrix A.
- If A is a square matrix, then det(A*) = (det A)* and tr(A*) = (tr A)*
- A is invertible if and only if A* is invertible, and in that case we have (A*)−1 = (A−1)*.
- The eigenvalues of A* are the complex conjugates of the eigenvalues of A.
- <Ax,y> = <x, A*y> for any m-by-n matrix A, any vector x in Cn and any vector y in Cm. Here <·,·> denotes the standard complex inner product on Cm and Cn.
[edit] Generalizations
The last property given above shows that if one views A as a linear transformation from the Euclidean Hilbert space Cn to Cm, then the matrix A* corresponds to the adjoint operator of A. The concept of adjoint operators between Hilbert spaces can thus be seen as a generalization of the conjugate transpose of matrices.
Another generalization is available: suppose A is a linear map from a complex vector space V to another W, then the complex conjugate linear map as well as the transposed linear map are defined, and we may thus take the conjugate transpose of A to be the complex conjugate of the transpose of A. It maps the conjugate dual of W to the conjugate dual of V.