Definition:Inner Product

Definition
Let $V$ be a vector space over a subfield $\mathbb F$ of $\C$.

An inner product is a mapping $\left \langle {\cdot, \cdot} \right \rangle : V \times V \to \mathbb F$ that satisfies the following properties:


 * $\forall x, y, z \in V, a \in \mathbb F$:
 * $(1): \quad \left \langle {x, y} \right \rangle = \overline{\left \langle {y, x} \right \rangle}$, commonly referred to as conjugate symmetry
 * $(2): \quad \left \langle {a x, y} \right \rangle = a \left \langle {x, y} \right \rangle$
 * $(3): \quad \left \langle {x + y, z} \right \rangle = \left \langle {x, z} \right \rangle + \left \langle {y, z} \right \rangle $
 * $(4): \quad \left \langle {x, x} \right \rangle \ge 0$
 * $(5): \quad \left \langle {x, x} \right \rangle = 0$ iff $x = \mathbf 0_V$

That is, an inner product is a semi-inner product together with the extra condition $(5)$.

If $\mathbb F$ is a field not contained in $\C$ then $(1)$ above is taken to be:


 * $(1^\prime): \quad \left \langle {x, y} \right \rangle = \left \langle {y, x} \right \rangle$, that is: an inner product is symmetric.

Also known as
Some sources use the term innerproduct.

Also see

 * Semi-Inner Product, a slightly more general concept.


 * The most well-known example of an inner product is the dot product (see Dot Product is Inner Product).