Coercive function
In mathematics, a coercive function is a function that "grows rapidly" at the extremes of the space on which it is defined. Depending on the context different exact definitions of this idea are in use.
Coercive vector fields
A vector field f : Rn → Rn is called coercive if
where "" denotes the usual dot product and
denotes the usual Euclidean norm of the vector x.
A coercive vector field is in particular norm-coercive since
for
, by
Cauchy Schwarz inequality.
However a norm-coercive mapping
f : Rn → Rn
is not necessarily a coercive vector field. For instance
the rotation
f : R2 → R2, f(x) = (-x2, x1)
by 90° is a norm-coercive mapping which fails to be a coercive vector field since
for every
.
Coercive operators and forms
A self-adjoint operator where
is a real Hilbert space, is called coercive if there exists a constant
such that
for all in
A bilinear form is called coercive if there exists a constant
such that
for all in
It follows from the Riesz representation theorem that any symmetric (defined as: for all
in
), continuous (
for all
in
and some constant
) and coercive bilinear form
has the representation
for some self-adjoint operator which then turns out to be a coercive operator. Also, given a coercive self-adjoint operator
the bilinear form
defined as above is coercive.
One can also show that any self-adjoint operator is a coercive operator if and only if it is a coercive mapping
(in the sense of coercivity of a vector field, where one has to replace the dot product with the more general inner product).
The definitions of coercivity for vector fields, operators, and bilinear forms are closely related and compatible.
Norm-coercive mappings
A mapping
between two normed vectorspaces
and
is called norm-coercive iff
.
More generally, a function between two topological spaces
and
is called coercive if for every compact subset
of
there exists a compact subset
of
such that
The composition of a bijective proper map followed by a coercive map is coercive.
(Extended valued) coercive functions
An (extended valued) function
is called coercive iff
A realvalued coercive function
is in particular norm-coercive. However a norm-coercive function
is not necessarily coercive.
For instance the identity function on
is norm-coercive
but not coercive.
See also: radially unbounded functions
References
- Renardy, Michael and Rogers, Robert C. (2004). An introduction to partial differential equations (Second ed.). New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. pp. xiv+434. ISBN 0-387-00444-0.
- Bashirov, Agamirza E (2003). Partially observable linear systems under dependent noises. Basel; Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag. ISBN 0-8176-6999-X.
- Gilbarg, D.; Trudinger, N. (2001). Elliptic partial differential equations of second order, 2nd ed. Berlin; New York: Springer. ISBN 3-540-41160-7.
This article incorporates material from Coercive Function on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.