Conjugate Transpose - Basic Remarks

Basic Remarks

A square matrix A with entries is called

  • Hermitian or self-adjoint if A = A*, i.e., .
  • skew Hermitian or antihermitian if A = −A*, i.e., .
  • normal if A*A = AA*.
  • unitary if A* = A-1.

Even if A is not square, the two matrices A*A and AA* are both Hermitian and in fact positive semi-definite matrices.

The conjugate transpose "adjoint" matrix A* should not be confused with the adjugate adj(A), which is also sometimes called "adjoint".

Finding the conjugate transpose of a matrix A with real entries reduces to finding the transpose of A, as the conjugate of a real number is the number itself.

Read more about this topic:  Conjugate Transpose

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