[Tex/LaTex] \hat over italic letters is not centered horizontally

horizontal alignmentletterhead

When using 

$\hat{a}$

in LaTeX, the hat is actually aligned slightly left of the a's true head… Is there any common way to fix this?

As I think that this is a common issue, I didn't screenshot it, but if you want, let me know.

Best Answer

Starting point for comparison:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
  $\hat a$
\end{document}

Result

The centering is better with other math fonts like mathptm:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\begin{document}
  $\hat a$
\end{document}

Result

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mathpazo}
\begin{document}
  $\hat a$
\end{document}

Result

Another variant is using the symbol from a text font, e.g. lmodern that matches the standard Computer Modern fonts for math:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} 
\usepackage{lmodern} 
\begin{document}
  $\textit{\^a}$
\end{document}

Result

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