When is independent of and ,
Put
The zero-curvature equation becomes
Since
we obtain the Isospectral Lax equation
Therefore, for every positive integer , the cyclic property of the matrix trace gives
These are the trace invariants of a Lax equation.
The PDE from part (b) reduces to
With , this is
To extract a nontrivial invariant, use . Writing , direct multiplication gives
The terms involving are constant, and . Hence
is a first integral. Direct differentiation verifies it:
Put . This is a nonzero Hermitian matrix. By the finite-dimensional spectral theorem, it has a unit eigenvector with a nonzero real eigenvalue . Define the rank-one orthogonal projection matrix
The cyclic property of the matrix trace gives
Hence this distinguishes and through the required traces.
Substituting into the curvature and collecting terms gives the covariant transformation
Equivalently, in the stated conventions. Since is proportional to , cyclicity of the matrix trace gives
Thus the Yang-Mills action is gauge-invariant.
For the convention in the question, a finite Yang-Mills gauge transformation acts covariantly on the field strength:
or with and exchanged if the opposite convention is used for . Cyclicity of the matrix trace gives
so the Yang-Mills theory Lagrangian is gauge invariant.
The quadratic gauge-field operator has zero directions along each gauge orbit. It therefore has no inverse on the full field space. Gauge fixing removes this degeneracy and produces a propagator, while the Faddeev-Popov determinant accounts for the corresponding Jacobian.
Choose the orientation of a surface represented by a smooth Gauss map . The shape operator at is
If its principal curvatures are , then by definition
Let be a proper Euclidean motion of Euclidean three-space, so . Orient by transporting the normal:
The chain rule gives the orthogonal conjugacy
The determinant and trace are invariant under similarity, so the Euclidean invariance of the shape operator yields
If the surface orientation is reversed, then and are multiplied by . Therefore the orientation reversal of surface curvature says
The matrix trace is
Using matrix multiplication and interchanging dummy indices,
The proposed noncyclic interchange is false. With matrix units,
one has
Trace is invariant under cyclic permutations, but an arbitrary swap need not be cyclic.
Multiply the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions on the right by and take the matrix trace:
Symmetry and the defining property of the subgradient of the absolute value give
Consequently the last two terms in the objective sum to , and hence
An open-boundary matrix product state with physical dimension and bond dimension is
where the are matrices and are boundary vectors. For periodic boundary conditions, replace the boundary contraction by the matrix trace .
The same matrices define the matrix product state transfer map
When , the Stinespring dilation
is an isometry. Repeatedly applying stores each Kraus label in a fresh physical register:
Contracting the remaining virtual system with gives an MPS, while tracing over all recorded labels gives repeated application of the completely positive map . The MPS is therefore a coherent unravelling of the channel. Equivalently, retaining the Kraus-label registers realizes a purification of its output. A non-normalized MPS tensor gives the same construction with a general completely positive map; an appropriate canonical gauge normalizes the transfer map on its support.
For the injective translationally invariant case, the fundamental theorem of matrix product states states that two tensors and of the same minimal bond dimension generate the same periodic MPS for every sufficiently large length if and only if
for every physical index , with one invertible matrix . Equality as normalized rays permits the phase ; equality as vectors for all lengths restricts the resulting factor accordingly. The converse is immediate from cyclicity of the matrix trace:
For the nontrivial direction, block enough sites that both tensors are injective and define
with defined similarly. Injectivity means that and have trivial kernels. Equality of all sufficiently long periodic states implies equality of the local support spaces , so there is an invertible linear map on the virtual matrix algebra satisfying
Compare two adjacent blocks and contract arbitrary environments on their left and right. Because both block maps are injective, equality of the physical contractions forces
Thus is a unital algebra automorphism of . By every automorphism of a full matrix algebra is inner, for an invertible . Applying this relation to a block with one physical site exposed gives
This proves the theorem and identifies the freedom as the gauge equivalence of injective matrix product state tensors. For noninjective tensors, their canonical forms first split into injective blocks; equality then permits a permutation of equivalent blocks together with a similarity transformation and phase on each block.
The tensor product of the defining representation and its dual is the endomorphism representation. Splitting an endomorphism into its matrix trace and traceless part gives
In Dynkin labels, the two irreducible summands have highest weights and .
The relation in part vi gives
so the full-superspace term has gauge invariance. The chiral field-strength superfield transforms covariantly,
Cyclicity of the matrix trace then gives . Both superspace integrals, and hence the entire Lagrangian density, are invariant.
The continuous symmetry is
Strictly, the diagonal central acts trivially, so the faithful group is the quotient by that common center. Since and are unitary matrices,
Every term is therefore unchanged by cyclicity of the matrix trace:
and the same conjugation argument applies to and .
Since , both and vary by a commutator. Cyclicity of the matrix trace therefore makes both terms gauge invariant. In electric and magnetic variables,
The Yang-Mills kinetic term is even under , , and . The Yang-Mills theta term is even under because both fields change sign and transpose, but odd under and under because exactly one of changes sign.
Expanding , using antisymmetry of , and cyclically rearranging the matrix trace gives
where the Chern-Simons current is
The theta contribution to the action is therefore a boundary term. For variations that vanish at the spacetime boundary, its variation vanishes, so it contributes nothing to the classical Euler-Lagrange field equations. Its integral can still distinguish topologically nontrivial gauge configurations in the quantum theory.
For a determinant-one lift of a hyperbolic holonomy representation, the squared matrix trace of each fixed group word is a polynomial in the finitely many generator-matrix entries. The displayed identity identifies equal positive lengths with equal squared traces. Lift signs have no effect. Finite choices of length matchings therefore give finite unions of affine algebraic sets.
For real positive semidefinite matrices , their product need not be symmetric, but its matrix trace is nonnegative:
The equality uses the cyclic property of the matrix trace, and the last matrix is a positive semidefinite matrix. Consequently the Loewner order inequality implies whenever .
Semidefinite programming 2026-10-05
A semidefinite program optimizes a linear function subject to equalities between affine functions and positive semidefinite matrix inequalities. It generalizes linear programming: a diagonal matrix is a positive semidefinite matrix exactly when its diagonal entries are nonnegative. Matrix trace expresses the objective as for real symmetric matrices.
Trace invariants of a Lax equation Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
If
then every positive power has constant trace:
The final equality is the cyclic property of the matrix trace.
The matrix trace of is zero, since . This obstructs a matrix with nonzero trace from being a single commutator.