Closure property of positive-semidefinite kernels

Nonnegative scalar multiples, sums, pointwise products, pointwise limits, and pullbacks of positive-semidefinite kernels are positive semidefinite whenever the displayed expressions are defined.

Suppose $k_{\tau }$ is a positive-semidefinite kernel for every $\tau$ and its diagonal entries are integrable. Positivity of each $2\times 2$ kernel matrix givesThe Cauchy-Schwarz inequality makes every entry integrable, and integrating each nonnegative finite quadratic form shows that $\int k_{\tau }d\tau$ is again a positive-semidefinite kernel.

The pointwise product of two positive-semidefinite kernels is positive semidefinite because its finite kernel matrix is the entrywise product of two positive-semidefinite matrices, to which the Schur product theorem applies.