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In mathematics (specifically linear algebra, operator theory, and functional analysis) as well as physics, a linear operator acting on an inner product space is called positive-semidefinite (or non-negative) if, for every (), , and , , where is the domain of .
In mathematics, a symmetric matrix with real entries is positive-definite if the real number is positive for every nonzero real column vector , where is the row vector transpose of . [1] More generally, a Hermitian matrix (that is, a complex matrix equal to its conjugate transpose) is positive-definite if the real number is positive for every nonzero complex column vector , where denotes the ...
A semidefinite (or semi-definite) quadratic form is defined in much the same way, except that "always positive" and "always negative" are replaced by "never negative" and "never positive", respectively.
The Gram matrix is positive semidefinite, and every positive semidefinite matrix is the Gramian matrix for some set of vectors. The fact that the Gramian matrix is positive-semidefinite can be seen from the following simple derivation:
A Hermitian diagonally dominant matrix with real non-negative diagonal entries is positive semidefinite. This follows from the eigenvalues being real, and Gershgorin's circle theorem. If the symmetry requirement is eliminated, such a matrix is not necessarily positive semidefinite. For example, consider
A positive matrix is a matrix in which all the elements are strictly greater than zero. The set of positive matrices is the interior of the set of all non-negative matrices. While such matrices are commonly found, the term "positive matrix" is only occasionally used due to the possible confusion with positive-definite matrices, which are different.
Positive-definiteness arises naturally in the theory of the Fourier transform; it can be seen directly that to be positive-definite it is sufficient for f to be the Fourier transform of a function g on the real line with g(y) ≥ 0.