Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Specifically, adjoint or adjunction may mean: Adjoint of a linear map, also called its transpose in case of matrices; Hermitian adjoint (adjoint of a linear operator) in functional analysis; Adjoint endomorphism of a Lie algebra; Adjoint representation of a Lie group; Adjoint functors in category theory; Adjunction (field theory)
For a conjugate-linear operator the definition of adjoint needs to be adjusted in order to compensate for the complex conjugation. An adjoint operator of the conjugate-linear operator A on a complex Hilbert space H is an conjugate-linear operator A ∗ : H → H with the property:
In both parts of the theorem, the expression is defined by means of the functional calculus, which uses the spectral theorem for unbounded self-adjoint operators. The operator A {\displaystyle A} is called the infinitesimal generator of ( U t ) t ∈ R . {\displaystyle (U_{t})_{t\in \mathbb {R} }.}
The spectral theorem is the beginning of the vast research area of functional analysis called operator theory; see also spectral measure. There is also an analogous spectral theorem for bounded normal operators on Hilbert spaces. The only difference in the conclusion is that now may be complex-valued.
Self-adjoint operators are used in functional analysis and quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics their importance lies in the Dirac–von Neumann formulation of quantum mechanics, in which physical observables such as position, momentum, angular momentum and spin are represented by self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space.
If X is a Hilbert space and T is a self-adjoint operator (or, more generally, a normal operator), then a remarkable result known as the spectral theorem gives an analogue of the diagonalisation theorem for normal finite-dimensional operators (Hermitian matrices, for example).
For a Hilbert space, T* normally denotes the adjoint of an operator T ∈ B(H), not the transpose, and σ(T*) is not σ(T) but rather its image under complex conjugation. For a self-adjoint T ∈ B(H), the Borel functional calculus gives additional ways to break up the spectrum naturally.
The operators may be presented abstractly by their characteristics, such as bounded linear operators or closed operators, and consideration may be given to nonlinear operators. The study, which depends heavily on the topology of function spaces, is a branch of functional analysis .