Double summation index notation: $\Sigma_{i<j}$ versus $\Sigma_{i\neq j}$

index-notationsummationsummation-method

What is the difference between the summations using $i<j$ and $i\neq j$ in the formula below:
$$\sigma^{2}(\boldsymbol{w})=\sum_{i} \tilde{w}_{i}^{2}+2 \sum_{i<j} \tilde{w}_{i} \tilde{w}_{j} \rho_{i, j}=\sum_{i} \tilde{w}_{i}^{2}+\rho(\boldsymbol{w}) \sum_{i \neq j} \tilde{w}_{i} \tilde{w}_{j}$$
Screenshot here.

  1. Are both summations operationally equivalent?
  2. If so, why break consistency and have two competing representations?
  3. Which summation is more correct, or which to use for which situations?

One of the non-best answers here seem to apply, but not sure how in my case.

Best Answer

$\sum_{i<j}$ sums over all the possible pairs $(i,j)$ for which $i<j$ holds. Similarly, $\sum_{i\neq j}$ sums over all the possible pairs $(i,j)$ for which $i\neq j$ holds.

For example, if $i$ and $j$ can take values in $\{1,2,3\}$, then

$$\sum_{i<j}a_{i,j}=a_{1,2}+a_{1,3}+a_{2,3},$$

whereas

$$\sum_{i\neq j}a_{i,j}=a_{1,2}+a_{1,3}+a_{2,1}+a_{2,3}+a_{3,1}+a_{3,2}.$$

If the summand is symmetric, i.e., $a_{i,j}=a_{j,i}$ holds for all $i$ and $j$, these two quantities are related by

$$\sum_{i\neq j}a_{i,j}=2\sum_{i<j}a_{i,j}.$$