Operator normIn 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. Informally, the operator norm of a linear map is the maximum factor by which it "lengthens" vectors. Given two normed vector spaces and (over the same base field, either the real numbers or the complex numbers ), a linear map is continuous if and only if there exists a real number such that The norm on the left is the one in and the norm on the right is the one in .
Spectral theoremIn mathematics, particularly linear algebra and functional analysis, a spectral theorem is a result about when a linear operator or matrix can be diagonalized (that is, represented as a diagonal matrix in some basis). This is extremely useful because computations involving a diagonalizable matrix can often be reduced to much simpler computations involving the corresponding diagonal matrix. The concept of diagonalization is relatively straightforward for operators on finite-dimensional vector spaces but requires some modification for operators on infinite-dimensional spaces.
Trace (linear algebra)In linear algebra, the trace of a square matrix A, denoted tr(A), is defined to be the sum of elements on the main diagonal (from the upper left to the lower right) of A. The trace is only defined for a square matrix (n × n). It can be proven that the trace of a matrix is the sum of its (complex) eigenvalues (counted with multiplicities). It can also be proven that tr(AB) = tr(BA) for any two matrices A and B. This implies that similar matrices have the same trace.
Unitary matrixIn linear algebra, an invertible complex square matrix U is unitary if its conjugate transpose U* is also its inverse, that is, if where I is the identity matrix. In physics, especially in quantum mechanics, the conjugate transpose is referred to as the Hermitian adjoint of a matrix and is denoted by a dagger (†), so the equation above is written For real numbers, the analogue of a unitary matrix is an orthogonal matrix. Unitary matrices have significant importance in quantum mechanics because they preserve norms, and thus, probability amplitudes.
