[Math] matrix trace bilinear form

bilinear-formlinear algebraquadratic-forms

I'm wondering about this problem on bilinear forms :

We have $\phi : \mathbb{M_{n}(R)}*\mathbb{M_{n}(R)} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ $$(A,B) \rightarrow trace(AB)$$

I've proved $\phi$ is a bilinear form and symetric, but how could we do to prove it is a non generate form ?

Besides if we have $\mathbb{S_{n}(R)}$ the subspace of $\mathbb{M_{n}(R)}$ formed by symmetric matrix, prove the restriction of $\phi$ to $\mathbb{S_{n}(R)}*\mathbb{S_{n}(R)}$ is also a non degenerate form, and then determine the orthogonal of $\mathbb{S_{n}(R)}$ for $\phi$

Thanks

Best Answer

Note that this bilinear form is not degenerate. Indeed you take $B=^tA $ and obtain $\phi : \mathbb{M_{n}(R)}*\mathbb{M_{n}(R)} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ $$(A,^tA) \rightarrow trace(A^tA)\ge0$$ To find the orthogonal of symmetric matrix note that if $A $ is a anti-symmetric matrix then $$(A,B) =tr(AB)=tr(^t(BA))=tr(^tA^tB)=tr(-AB)=-(A,B)$$ from here $$(A,B)=0$$ Note that the bilinear form is not degenerate we obtain that the dimension of orthogonal of symmetric matrix is given by $n^2$- the dimension of symmetric matrix. You obtain that $$dim \mathbb{S_{n}(R)}^{\perp}=n^2-dim \mathbb{S_{n}(R)}=dim\mathbb{A_{n}(R)}$$ where $\mathbb{A_{n}(R)}$ are anti-symmetric matrix.