Is there a classification of the inner products on $\mathbb{R}^n$ up to isomorphism?

378 Views Asked by At

Let $V := \mathbb{R}^n$, then the inner products on $V$ are in bijection with the set of symmetric positive definite matrices in $M_n(\mathbb{R})$. The bijection is given by sending a matrix $M$ to the inner product given by: $$\langle v,w\rangle_M := v^tMw\qquad\text{for all $v,w\in V$}$$ If $M,M'$ are two such matrices, then I will say that they give equivalent inner products on $V$ if there is an automorphism $T\in GL(V)$ such that $$\langle Tv,Tw\rangle_{M'} = \langle v,w\rangle_M$$ This translates into the condition: $$T^tMT = M$$ which is similar to asking for conjugacy classes of symmetric positive definite matrices, though not quite.

Is it possible to classify the equivalency classes of inner products on $V$?

References would be appreciated as well.

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On BEST ANSWER

The classical result that any inner product admits an orthonormal basis exactly says that any two inner products are equivalent. In general, Sylvester's theorem says that over $\mathbb R$ symmetric bilinear forms are classified up to equivalence by rank and signature.