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A vector field V defined on an open set S is called a gradient field or a conservative field if there exists a real-valued function (a scalar field) f on S such that = = (,,, …,). The associated flow is called the gradient flow , and is used in the method of gradient descent .
Any vector field can be written in terms of the unit vectors as: = ^ + ^ + ^ = ^ + ^ + ^ The cylindrical unit vectors are related to the Cartesian unit vectors by: [^ ^ ^] = [ ] [^ ^ ^] Note: the matrix is an orthogonal matrix , that is, its inverse is simply its transpose .
A vector field is a vector-valued function that, generally, has a domain of the same dimension (as a manifold) as its codomain, Conservative vector field, a vector field that is the gradient of a scalar potential field; Hamiltonian vector field, a vector field defined for any energy function or Hamiltonian
A field can be classified as a scalar field, a vector field, a spinor field or a tensor field according to whether the represented physical quantity is a scalar, a vector, a spinor, or a tensor, respectively. A field has a consistent tensorial character wherever it is defined: i.e. a field cannot be a scalar field somewhere and a vector field ...
For a tensor field of order k > 1, the tensor field of order k is defined by the recursive relation = where is an arbitrary constant vector. A tensor field of order greater than one may be decomposed into a sum of outer products, and then the following identity may be used: = ().
In vector calculus, a conservative vector field is a vector field that is the gradient of some function. [1] A conservative vector field has the property that its line integral is path independent; the choice of path between two points does not change the value of the line integral. Path independence of the line integral is equivalent to the ...
A vector field defines a direction and magnitude at each point in space. A field line is an integral curve for that vector field and may be constructed by starting at a point and tracing a line through space that follows the direction of the vector field, by making the field line tangent to the field vector at each point.
The next simplest example is the field F itself. Vector addition is just field addition, and scalar multiplication is just field multiplication. This property can be used to prove that a field is a vector space. Any non-zero element of F serves as a basis so F is a 1-dimensional vector space over itself.