eigenvector(redirected from Eigenvectors)
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(or characteristic vector). An eigenvector of a linear transformation is a vector that does not change direction under the transformation and is simply multiplied by a scalar. For example, the eigenvectors of a transformation composed of rotations about some axis and of contraction toward the plane perpendicular to the axis are vectors directed along the axis.
The coordinates x1x2,..., xn of the eigenvectors of a transformation of n-dimensional space with the matrix ║aik║ satisfy the system of homogeneous linear equations
where λ is an eigenvalue of the matrix. If the matrix of a transformation is Hermitian, then the eigenvectors are mutually perpendicular. As a result of a Hermitian transformation, a sphere becomes an ellipsoid whose major axes are eigenvectors of the transformation.
It should be noted that "vector" here means "element of a vector space" which can include many mathematical entities. Ordinary vectors are elements of a vector space, and multiplication by a matrix is a linear transformation on them; smooth functions "are vectors", and many partial differential operators are linear transformations on the space of such functions; quantum-mechanical states "are vectors", and observables are linear transformations on the state space.
An important theorem says, roughly, that certain linear transformations have enough eigenvectors that they form a basis of the whole vector states. This is why Fourier analysis works, and why in quantum mechanics every state is a superposition of eigenstates of observables.
An eigenvector is a (representative member of a) fixed point of the map on the projective plane induced by a linear map.