Trace class

A linear operator A; over a Hilbert space H is said to be in the trace class if for some (and hence all) orthonormal bases &Omega of H; the sum

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is finite. In this case, the sum is called the trace of A,denoted by tr(A) and is independent of the choice of the orthonormal bases.

When H is finite dimensional, then the trace of A is just the trace of a matrix and the last property stated above is roughly saying that trace is invariant under similarity.

The trace is a linear functional over the trace class, meaning

tr(aA+bB)=atr(A)+btr(B).

The bilinear map <A,B>=tr(AB^*) is an inner product on the trace class, where the induced norm is called the trace norm.