Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Dual basis
Summary
In linear algebra, given a vector space with a basis of vectors indexed by an index set (the cardinality of is the dimension of ), the dual set of is a set of vectors in the dual space with the same index set I such that and form a biorthogonal system. The dual set is always linearly independent but does not necessarily span . If it does span , then is called the dual basis or reciprocal basis for the basis .
Denoting the indexed vector sets as and , being biorthogonal means that the elements pair to have an inner product equal to 1 if the indexes are equal, and equal to 0 otherwise. Symbolically, evaluating a dual vector in on a vector in the original space :
where is the Kronecker delta symbol.
To perform operations with a vector, we must have a straightforward method of calculating its components. In a Cartesian frame the necessary operation is the dot product of the vector and the base vector. For example,
where is the bases in a Cartesian frame. The components of can be found by
However, in a non-Cartesian frame, we do not necessarily have for all . However, it is always possible to find a vector such that
The equality holds when is the dual base of . Notice the difference in position of the index .
In a Cartesian frame, we have
The dual set always exists and gives an injection from V into V∗, namely the mapping that sends vi to vi. This says, in particular, that the dual space has dimension greater or equal to that of V.
However, the dual set of an infinite-dimensional V does not span its dual space V∗. For example, consider the map w in V∗ from V into the underlying scalars F given by w(vi) = 1 for all i. This map is clearly nonzero on all vi. If w were a finite linear combination of the dual basis vectors vi, say for a finite subset K of I, then for any j not in K, , contradicting the definition of w. So, this w does not lie in the span of the dual set.
The dual of an infinite-dimensional space has greater dimensionality (this being a greater infinite cardinality) than the original space has, and thus these cannot have a basis with the same indexing set.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related publications (13)
Related people (2)
Related concepts (8)
Orientation (vector space)
The orientation of a real vector space or simply orientation of a vector space is the arbitrary choice of which ordered bases are "positively" oriented and which are "negatively" oriented. In the three-dimensional Euclidean space, right-handed bases are typically declared to be positively oriented, but the choice is arbitrary, as they may also be assigned a negative orientation. A vector space with an orientation selected is called an oriented vector space, while one not having an orientation selected, is called .
Reciprocal lattice
In physics, the reciprocal lattice represents the Fourier transform of another lattice. The direct lattice or real lattice is a periodic function in physical space, such as a crystal system (usually a Bravais lattice). The reciprocal lattice exists in the mathematical space of spatial frequencies, known as reciprocal space or k space, where refers to the wavevector. In quantum physics, reciprocal space is closely related to momentum space according to the proportionality , where is the momentum vector and is the reduced Planck constant.
Kronecker delta
In mathematics, the Kronecker delta (named after Leopold Kronecker) is a function of two variables, usually just non-negative integers. The function is 1 if the variables are equal, and 0 otherwise: or with use of Iverson brackets: For example, because , whereas because . The Kronecker delta appears naturally in many areas of mathematics, physics, engineering and computer science, as a means of compactly expressing its definition above.