Boundary element methodThe boundary element method (BEM) is a numerical computational method of solving linear partial differential equations which have been formulated as integral equations (i.e. in boundary integral form), including fluid mechanics, acoustics, electromagnetics (where the technique is known as method of moments or abbreviated as MoM), fracture mechanics, and contact mechanics. The integral equation may be regarded as an exact solution of the governing partial differential equation.
Fourier transform on finite groupsIn mathematics, the Fourier transform on finite groups is a generalization of the discrete Fourier transform from cyclic to arbitrary finite groups. The Fourier transform of a function at a representation of is For each representation of , is a matrix, where is the degree of . The inverse Fourier transform at an element of is given by The convolution of two functions is defined as The Fourier transform of a convolution at any representation of is given by For functions , the Plancherel formula states where are the irreducible representations of .
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.
Character theoryIn mathematics, more specifically in group theory, the character of a group representation is a function on the group that associates to each group element the trace of the corresponding matrix. The character carries the essential information about the representation in a more condensed form. Georg Frobenius initially developed representation theory of finite groups entirely based on the characters, and without any explicit matrix realization of representations themselves.