Translation of a distribution (${\tau }_{h}u$)

If ${\tau }_{h}f(x)=f(x-h)$ for functions, its extension to distributions is defined by

With translation of a distribution defined by $⟨{\tau }_{h}u,\phi ⟩=⟨u,\phi (\cdot +h)⟩$, differentiation of the test function gives $\frac{d}{dh}{\tau }_{h}u=-{\tau }_h{u}^{\prime }$ in weak convergence of distributions. The Taylor theorem shows convergence in the space of test functions, including a common compact support. Thus $({\tau }_{-h}u-u)/h\to u^{\prime }$; fixing the translation convention prevents a sign error.

A distribution is invariant under every translation parallel to the $i$th coordinate axis exactly when its $i$th distributional derivative vanishes. Differentiate the translated pairing for one direction; integrate that derivative in the translation parameter for the converse.