Abstract.
A standard topic in linear algebra is the dual space of a vector space, as well as the canonical embedding of a vector space in its double dual. Moreover, transposition of homomorphisms in terms of dual spaces is rather well known. Something less known is that one has a canonical map from the dual of V tensored with W to the space of homomorphisms from V to W. In this abstract nonsense post, we describe these canonical maps, their interplay, and try to determine their images.
Let
and
be vector spaces over a field
and
,
their duals. In case
is finite dimensional, one obtains a non-canonical isomorphism
, a canonical isomorphism
and a canonical isomorphism
.
In case
,
and
are not isomorphic: a basis of
has a cardinality strictly larger than the one of
. Moreover, the canonical map
is still a monomorphism, but no longer surjective. In the case of
, one has as well a canonical monomorphism
, but it is no longer surjective as well. We want to study the images of the canonical maps
and
.
We begin with an auxiliary lemma.
Lemma.Letwith
. Then there exists some
with
. Hence, if
satisfies
for all
, then
.
Proof.Choose a-basis
of
such that there exists some
with
. Define
by
. Then
and
.
□
Proposition.The mapis a monomorphism and its image is
In particular, if
for some
, then
.
Proof.Clearly, for,
is
-linear. Moreover, one quickly sees that
is
-linear itself. To see that
is injective, let
with
. Now, by the lemma, there exists a
with
; this shows that
, whence
. Therefore,
an
is injective.
Now, if,
, whence
. This shows that the image of
is contained in the given set. Now assume that
satisfies
; say,
. Then
for all
, whence
. By the Homomorphism Theorem, there exists a homomorphism
such that
commutes. Now
, whence
. As
(as
),
is an isomorphism and we must have
for some
. But then,
lies in the image of
.
Finally, if, we saw that we have
for any non-zero
, with
depending on
. Since
is injective, this shows that we must have
.
□
This allows us to show that
is surjective if, and only if,
.
Corollary.We have thatis surjective if, and only if,
.
Proof.First, if, we see that
. Since
is injective, it follows that
is in fact an isomorphism.
Now assume that. It suffices to construct a hyperplane
in
with
; this defines an element of
which is not contained in the image of
by the above proposition. For that, chose a basis
of
(using Zorn’s lemma). This defines a family of elements of
by
,
. Let
be the subspace of
generated by the
’s. If we would have
, we could emply Zorn’s lemma a second time to obtain a hyperplane
with
; this would prove our claim.
Hence, we have to show that. Note that for
,
; in particular, for every
, only finitely many of the
’s are non-zero. Hence, it makes sense to define
,
. We claim that
in case
: for that, note that
is a linear independent set in
, since for every linear combination
, we get
for every
.
□
Note that in fact, the proof shows that
is isomorphic to a
-fold direct product of
, while
is isomorphic to a
-fold direct sum of
. In case
, these are of the same dimension, but in case
, they are not.
.
Proposition.The mapis a monomorphism and its image is
the
-vector space of finite dimensional
-homomorphisms
.
Proof.One quickly sees thatdefines an element of
, whence
is well-defined and its image is contained in
. Moreover, one quickly sees that
is a homomorphism.
Letwith
, i.e. with
for all
. Without loss of generality, we can assume that our representation of
satisfies that the
’s are linearly independent. In that case,
implies
for all
. But since this is true for all
, it follows that
for all
. But then,
. Therefore,
, whence
is injective.
Now let, and let
be a basis of
. Let
be the projections with
an
for
. Set
. Then
for all
since
for all
; therefore,
. This shows that
, whence we have equality.
□
Now
is a
-algebra, whence for
, it makes sense to define
. We are interested on how
can be described in terms of
and
. This is resolved by the following result:
Proposition.Letbe
-vector spaces. The map
is
-linear and the following diagram commutes:
![]()
Proof.Let,
and
be the canonical maps. Since these are isomorphisms, we have to show that for
,
and
, we have
. For that, let
. Then
what we had to show.
□
In particular,
is a
-algebra isomorphic to
; it posseses a
if, and only if,
.
Now consider transposition
Clearly, transposition is injective:
Lemma.The mapis
-linear and injective.
Proof.It is clear thatis
-linear. To see that it is injective, let
with
. Let
; then
for all
, whence
by the first lemma. But that means
.
□
We show that transposition restricts to the subspaces of the homomorphism spaces of homomorphisms with finite-dimensional image.
Lemma.Let. The map
is an isomorphism. In particular,
.
Proof.Let. The map
,
is well-defined and a homomorphism as
and
. Now let
with
, i.e. with
. But since
is defined on
, this means that
. Hence,
is injective.
Now let, i.e. there exists some
with
. Set
; then
and
. Therefore,
is injective.
Finally, in case, we have
and
, whence
. On the contrary, if
, we have
, whence
.
□
Now we have seen that
and
in a canonical way, and we have the canonical monomorphism
. We show that these maps behave nicely with transposition:
Proposition.The mapis the unique homomorphism which makes the diagram
commuting.
Proof.Letand
. Then
for
, and
for all
and
. Hence,
, what we had to show.
□
Now consider double transposition, i.e.
and its finite-dimensional image restriction
The above shows that using the canonical isomorphisms
and
, we can describe double transpotition by the following commuting diagram: ![\displaystyle \xymatrix@R-0.85cm{ \Hom_K^{fin}(V, W) \ar[r]^{T \circ T \;\;} \ar[dddd]_{\cong} & \Hom_K^{fin}(V^{**}, W^{**}) \ar[dddd]^{\cong} \\ {\vphantom{x}} \\ {\vphantom{y}} \\ {\vphantom{z}} \\ V^* \tensor_K W \ar[r]^{T \circ T \;\;} & V^{***} \tensor_K W^{**} \\ \sum_{i=1}^n v_i^* \tensor w_i \ar@{|->}[r] & \sum_{i=1}^n \Psi(v_i^*) \tensor \Psi(w_i) } \displaystyle \xymatrix@R-0.85cm{ \Hom_K^{fin}(V, W) \ar[r]^{T \circ T \;\;} \ar[dddd]_{\cong} & \Hom_K^{fin}(V^{**}, W^{**}) \ar[dddd]^{\cong} \\ {\vphantom{x}} \\ {\vphantom{y}} \\ {\vphantom{z}} \\ V^* \tensor_K W \ar[r]^{T \circ T \;\;} & V^{***} \tensor_K W^{**} \\ \sum_{i=1}^n v_i^* \tensor w_i \ar@{|->}[r] & \sum_{i=1}^n \Psi(v_i^*) \tensor \Psi(w_i) }](http://math.fontein.de/wp-content/latex/403/4035abc15635ebda0d929b35690f6c8e-T-000000-0.png)
If
, we obtain a map 
Lemma.The mapis
-linear and injective.
Proof.First, ifis fixed,
for all
,
; hence,
. Now, if
and
,
, we have
whence
is
-linear.
To see thatis injective, let
be such that
. Let
and
; since
for all
, we see that
, but since this is the case for all
we get
.
□
Note that we have the following diagram:
Moreover, using the canonical embeddings
and
, we can define a map
by
, and a map
by
. It turns out that these map make the diagram commute:
Lemma.The maps,
and
,
are
-linear and make the diagram
commute. In particular,
is injective.
Proof.Thatand
are
-linear is clear. For the lower triangle, let
; we have to show that
. For that, let
and
; then
For the right triangle, let
; we have to show that
. For that, let
and
; then
□
Now note that
is injective. We can use this to determine the image of
. For example, for
,
the last equivalence follows from the first proposition. Unfortunately, this criterion does not really helps in practice.
In case anyone knows a better description of the image of
or
, I’d be happy to know.
Tags: double dual, dual space, tensor product, transposition

with
. Then there exists some
with
. Hence, if
for all
.
of
with
. Define
by
. Then
and
.
is a monomorphism and its image is
In particular, if
for some
, then
.
is
with
; this shows that
, whence
. Therefore,
an
,
, whence
. This shows that the image of
satisfies
; say,
. Then
for all
, whence
. By the Homomorphism Theorem, there exists a homomorphism
such that
commutes. Now
, whence
. As
(as
is an isomorphism and we must have
for some
. But then,
lies in the image of
, we saw that we have
for any non-zero
, with
depending on
. Since
is injective, this shows that we must have
. Since
; this defines an element of
which is not contained in the image of
of
,
. Let
be the subspace of
’s. If we would have
, we could emply Zorn’s lemma a second time to obtain a hyperplane
with
; this would prove our claim.
. Note that for
; in particular, for every
’s are non-zero. Hence, it makes sense to define
,
. We claim that
in case
: for that, note that
is a linear independent set in
, we get
for every
.
is a monomorphism and its image is
the
.
defines an element of
, whence
is well-defined and its image is contained in
with
, i.e. with
for all
. Without loss of generality, we can assume that our representation of
satisfies that the
’s are linearly independent. In that case,
for all
. But since this is true for all
for all
. Therefore,
, whence
, and let
be a basis of
. Let
be the projections with
an
for
. Set
. Then
for all
for all
; therefore,
. This shows that
, whence we have equality.
be
is
,
and
be the canonical maps. Since these are isomorphisms, we have to show that for
,
and
, we have
. For that, let
. Then
what we had to show.
with
. Let
for all
, whence
.
is an isomorphism. In particular,
.
,
is well-defined and a homomorphism as
and
. Now let
with
, i.e. with
. But since
is defined on
, this means that
. Hence,
is injective.
, i.e. there exists some
with
. Set
; then
. Therefore,
, we have
and
, whence
. On the contrary, if
, we have
, whence
.
is the unique homomorphism which makes the diagram
commuting.
and
. Then
for
for all
and
, what we had to show.
is
for all
,
; hence,
. Now, if
and
whence
. Let
and
for all
.
,
,
commute. In particular,
is injective.
and
; we have to show that
. For that, let
For the right triangle, let
. For that, let

How do you publish your commutative diagrams, I assume using XY-pic syntax, (and other complex LaTeX, e.g. the cases environment) in Wordpress?
None of the plugins / blogs I’ve seen handle such complex use-cases.
Dear Shane,
I took the standard Wordpress LaTeX plugin and modified it for my purposes. I mainly added support for the align environment and for pstricks though, using XYpic is already possible with the default version in case you use your own server for LaTeX formula generation and not the Wordpress server (i.e. you need latex installed and accessible on your server). In case you can use your own server you can specify additions to the preamble (like \usepackage{xypic} and \usepackage{amsmath}) in the wp-latex options. (I’m not sure if amsmath is included by default, i.e. you can already use the cases environment without further changes; but it might just be that you can’t.) With these, you can use any XYpic commands inside the wp-latex math environments.