 Hermitian inner product

A Hermitian inner product is a Hermitian form $H$ on a complex vector space which has positive definiteness: $H(v,v)>0$ for every nonzero vector $v$. It is precisely a complex inner product. Only with this definiteness condition doesdefine a norm rather than a seminorm or an expression that may not be real. The standard Hermitian inner product on ${\mathbb{C}}^n$ is $H(z,w)={\sum }_j{z}_j\overline{w_j}$; positive weights $c_j$ give ${\sum }_j{c}_j{z}_j\overline{w_j}$, with squared norm ${\sum }_j{c}_j|z_j{|}^2$.^[ref]

A Hermitian inner product need not have a real matrix. For instance, with the linear-first coordinate convention,The last expression proves positive definiteness without a lengthy calculation of eigenvalues. For $z=(1,i)$ it gives $6$, while for $z=(1,-i)$ it gives $2$. These unequal values expose why a silent switch to $z^{\ast }Az$ would change this particular Hermitian inner product: with these same entries it gives $2$ at $(1,i)$. All entries must keep their roles from the matrix of a Hermitian form.

The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for a Hermitian inner product statesEquality holds exactly when $u,v$ are linearly dependent, including when either is zero. For a nonzero $u$, outline the proof by setting $a=H(v,u)/H(u,u)$ and $r=v-au$. Then $H(r,u)=0$, and the Pythagorean theorem givesNonnegativity proves the inequality, while positive definiteness makes equality equivalent to $r=0$. The scalar $a$ has no extra conjugate because the first argument is linear.^[ref]

The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality also holds for a positive semidefinite Hermitian form, but equality need not imply linear dependence: for $H_0(z,w)=z_1\overline{w_1}$, the independent vectors $e_1$ and $e_1+e_2$ give $1=1$. Equality then describes dependence after passing to the quotient vector space by the radical of a Hermitian form. The indefinite Hermitian form in Hermitian form shows that conjugate symmetry alone does not even guarantee the inequality.

For a worked orthogonal projection, take $H_{+}(z,w)=z_1\overline{w_1}+2z_2\overline{w_2}$, $u=(1,1)$ and $v=(2,0)$. Then $a=2/3$, $au=(2/3,2/3)$ and $r=(4/3,-2/3)$, with $H_{+}(r,u)=0$ and $4=4/3+8/3$ for the squared norms. The residual is perpendicular in this Hermitian inner product even though its ordinary real dot product with $u$ is $2/3$. For complex $v=(1,i)$, the same orthogonal projection uses $a=(1+2i)/3$; rotating $v$ multiplies $a$ by $e^{i\theta }$, while rotating $u$ multiplies $a$ by $e^{-i\theta }$. This combines geometric decomposition with sensitivity to the relative complex arguments of the multipliers.

A Hermitian inner product therefore supplies more than a positive diagonal: orthogonality, orthogonal projection onto a span, and the triangle inequality for its norm make approximation and distance meaningful. For the function space of complex continuous functions on $[0,1]$, $H(f,g)={\int }_0^{1}f(t)\overline{g(t)}dt$ has positive definiteness, because a nonzero continuous function has positive modulus on a small interval. The same construction turns overlap under integration into lengths and best approximation in finite-dimensional vector subspaces.