For ,
The vectors and are linearly independent, and . Thus exactly when
Solving gives
The th column of is
Thus the image is contained in . Since , is not constant; since and , two columns have a nonzero constant difference. The two spanning vectors therefore both lie in the image, so . By rank-nullity theorem,
Put
Since are unit vectors,
The feasible inner products with two unit vectors satisfy
The desired pair is feasible exactly when . In that case every maximizer has these inner products. If , symmetry and strict convexity force , and the nearest feasible diagonal point is
Using the vector triple product,
Hence
Rotations preserve dot products and cross-product lengths, while . Thus
Let
The target pair is feasible precisely when
or
On this interval,
Outside this interval, let be the unique number for which
and write . These equations give the unique weighted projection of onto the feasible ellipse, and therefore determine the maximizing inner products solely from . In the remaining cases,
Neither answer depends on or .
Since , it suffices to map the two edge vectors. Let the columns of the required matrix be . The condition gives
The condition then gives
and hence
These are orthonormal. Taking produces the orthogonal matrix
Its columns are orthonormal, and direct substitution verifies , , and .
The characteristic polynomial of is
A scalar is an eigenvalue when there is a nonzero vector such that
Such a is an eigenvector belonging to . Equivalently, is a root of and the corresponding eigenvectors are the nonzero elements of .
Eigenvectors belonging to distinct eigenvalues are linearly independent. Indeed, suppose
is a shortest nontrivial relation, where and the are distinct. Applying gives
a shorter nontrivial relation, a contradiction.
Thus distinct eigenvalues provide a basis of eigenvectors, proving that is diagonalizable over . If is real and all its eigenvalues are real, each real singular matrix has a nonzero real null vector. Choosing one for each eigenvalue gives a real eigenbasis. Hence the real matrix is diagonalizable over . This is the distinct eigenvalues imply diagonalizability criterion.
First note that if is normal, then
for every . Hence an eigenvector with also satisfies
Normalize and extend it to an orthonormal basis. Let have these basis vectors as columns. The first column of is . For every ,
so the first row also has no off-diagonal entries. Therefore
Comparing the two block products in the normality identity shows that , so is normal.
The result is trivial in dimension one. Applying the induction hypothesis to and adjoining the eigenvector gives an orthonormal eigenbasis for . This proves the unitary diagonalization of a normal matrix.
Let
They are jointly normal because they are linear combinations of a Gaussian vector. When ,
Hence uncorrelated jointly normal variables are independent. Their means and variances are
and
Therefore
independently.
A tensor of rank is a multilinear map of vector or covector arguments, equivalently an element of an -fold tensor product. In components it obeys one change-of-basis factor for each of its indices.
The special orthogonal group is
If
its first column is a unit vector, say . The second column is the unique unit vector perpendicular to it that gives positive determinant, namely . Thus
so is rotation through about the origin.
For , its real characteristic polynomial of odd degree has a real eigenvalue. Every eigenvalue of an orthogonal matrix has modulus one, so every real eigenvalue is . Nonreal eigenvalues occur in conjugate pairs whose product is one, while ; if all eigenvalues are real, their product likewise forces at least one to be . Hence fixes a nonzero vector . The plane is -invariant, and the restriction to it is an orientation-preserving orthogonal map. By the result it is a planar rotation. Therefore is a rotation about the axis .
Use the Levi-Civita symbol and the product rule. First,
For the second identity, the contraction
gives
In vector notation this is
These are the divergence and curl of a cross product identities.
Each freely moving particle has position, relative to its own initial radial and tangential unit vectors,
Thus all particles lie on a circle of radius
Their angular momenta are constant and sum to
Since , the angular velocity is
With ,
This is the geometry of a freely expanding rotating particle ring.
For a linear map , its rank is and its nullity is . The rank-nullity theorem states that, when is finite-dimensional,
To prove it, take a basis of and extend it to a basis
of . The vectors span . They are also linearly independent: if , then , and independence of the chosen basis forces every to vanish. Thus the rank is and the nullity is .
For the given subspace, row reduction of the coefficient matrix gives
Taking and therefore gives
Hence
is a basis of .
A gauge transformation is
Because partial derivatives commute, the added contribution to is
so the electromagnetic field tensor is gauge invariant.
Define
Since and ,
The identity
follows directly from . Its spatial and mixed components are
For the other two equations define the four-current
Then gives
and gives
This is the Covariant Maxwell equation with the minus-plus-plus-plus metric.
Using
one finds
This is the electromagnetic energy density.
For a null vector, the trace term in vanishes. Put
Antisymmetry gives . A vector orthogonal to a null vector has nonnegative Minkowski norm, so
Explicitly, in a frame with ,
Hence the null energy condition for the electromagnetic field is strict whenever the contraction is nonzero:
The characteristic polynomial is
To prove triangularizability, use induction on . The result is immediate for . Over , has a root , so has an eigenvector . Extend it to a basis. In this basis,
By induction, a change among the remaining basis vectors makes upper triangular. Thus the triangularization over an algebraically closed field gives
The minimal polynomial is the monic polynomial of least degree satisfying . To establish existence without quoting the Cayley-Hamilton theorem, let be an upper-triangular matrix similar to , with diagonal entries , and put
Then
The factors commute, so applying all of them successively lowers the invariant flag to zero:
Similarity gives the same polynomial identity for . Hence a nonzero monic annihilating polynomial of degree exists, and a least-degree one exists.
If and were two monic annihilating polynomials of the same least degree, then would be an annihilating polynomial of smaller degree unless it were zero. Thus the minimal polynomial is unique, and the minimal polynomial bound from a triangular invariant flag gives
Integer row and column operations give
Thus the Smith normal form is
The two relation vectors are the columns of the displayed matrix, so its cokernel is the presented module. Consequently
Proceed by induction on . Over , has an eigenvector , say . The normal operator satisfies the norm equality from part (c), so
Thus . Part (a) now shows that is invariant under both and . The restriction of to is normal. By induction it has an orthonormal eigenbasis, and adjoining the normalized vector proves the finite-dimensional spectral theorem for normal operators.
Hence
Fix . The map is a linear functional, so the finite-dimensional Riesz representation theorem gives a unique vector such that
For scalars ,
Uniqueness gives
so is linear.
For , apply this result to
It produces a unique linear map satisfying
which proves existence and uniqueness of the adjoint.
For , the independent vectors lie in the coordinate subspace supported on
which has dimension . Hence , and the stated form of Hall marriage theorem gives an injection with .
Let be the matrix whose th column is . Its column rank is . By equality of row and column rank, it has linearly independent rows. Let be their indices. The submatrix is invertible, so its columns are independent. Those columns are exactly the nonzero coordinates of , and therefore these truncated vectors are linearly independent.
Expanding gives a permutation for which
Thus . Finally, order the coordinates with first. The matrix whose columns are the together with the for is block triangular, with diagonal blocks and an identity matrix. Its determinant is nonzero. Consequently
is a basis of . This is the simultaneous basis exchange from a nonzero minor.
Let be free with basis . Given a surjection and a map , choose satisfying . There is a unique linear map with , and on every basis vector
Thus , proving that free modules are projective.