Function space - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, a function space is a set of function

Function (mathematics)

In mathematics, a function associates one quantity, the argument of the function, also known as the input, with another quantity, the value of the function, also known as the output. A function assigns exactly one output to each input. The argument and the value may be real numbers, but they can...

s of a given kind from a set X to a set Y. It is called a space because in many applications it is a topological space

Topological space

Topological spaces are mathematical structures that allow the formal definition of concepts such as convergence, connectedness, and continuity. They appear in virtually every branch of modern mathematics and are a central unifying notion...

, a vector space

Vector space

A vector space is a mathematical structure formed by a collection of vectors: objects that may be added together and multiplied by numbers, called scalars in this context. Scalars are often taken to be real numbers, but one may also consider vector spaces with scalar multiplication by complex...

, or both.

Examples

Function spaces appear in various areas of mathematics:

In set theory
Set theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies sets, which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics...

, the set of functions from X to Y may be denoted X → Y or Y^X.
As a special case, the power set of a set X may be identified with the set of all functions from X to {0, 1}, denoted 2^X.
The set of bijection
Bijection
A bijection is a function giving an exact pairing of the elements of two sets. A bijection from the set X to the set Y has an inverse function from Y to X. If X and Y are finite sets, then the existence of a bijection means they have the same number of elements...

s from X to Y is denoted X ↔ Y. The factorial notation X! may be used for permutations of a single set X.

In linear algebra
Linear algebra
Linear algebra is a branch of mathematics that studies vector spaces, also called linear spaces, along with linear functions that input one vector and output another. Such functions are called linear maps and can be represented by matrices if a basis is given. Thus matrix theory is often...

the set of all linear transformation
Linear transformation
In mathematics, a linear map, linear mapping, linear transformation, or linear operator is a function between two vector spaces that preserves the operations of vector addition and scalar multiplication. As a result, it always maps straight lines to straight lines or 0...

s from a vector space
Vector space
A vector space is a mathematical structure formed by a collection of vectors: objects that may be added together and multiplied by numbers, called scalars in this context. Scalars are often taken to be real numbers, but one may also consider vector spaces with scalar multiplication by complex...

V to another one, W, over the same field
Field (mathematics)
In abstract algebra, a field is a commutative ring whose nonzero elements form a group under multiplication. As such it is an algebraic structure with notions of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, satisfying certain axioms...

, is itself a vector space;

In functional analysis
Functional analysis
Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure and the linear operators acting upon these spaces and respecting these structures in a suitable sense...

the same is seen for continuous
Continuous function
In mathematics, a continuous function is a function for which, intuitively, "small" changes in the input result in "small" changes in the output. Otherwise, a function is said to be "discontinuous". A continuous function with a continuous inverse function is called "bicontinuous".Continuity of...

linear transformations, including topologies on the vector spaces
Topological vector space
In mathematics, a topological vector space is one of the basic structures investigated in functional analysis...

in the above, and many of the major examples are function spaces carrying a topology
Topology
Topology is a major area of mathematics concerned with properties that are preserved under continuous deformations of objects, such as deformations that involve stretching, but no tearing or gluing...

; the best known examples include Hilbert space
Hilbert space
The mathematical concept of a Hilbert space, named after David Hilbert, generalizes the notion of Euclidean space. It extends the methods of vector algebra and calculus from the two-dimensional Euclidean plane and three-dimensional space to spaces with any finite or infinite number of dimensions...

s and Banach space
Banach space
In mathematics, Banach spaces is the name for complete normed vector spaces, one of the central objects of study in functional analysis. A complete normed vector space is a vector space V with a norm ||·|| such that every Cauchy sequence in V has a limit in V In mathematics, Banach spaces is the...

s.

In functional analysis
Functional analysis
Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure and the linear operators acting upon these spaces and respecting these structures in a suitable sense...

the set of all functions from the natural number
Natural number
In mathematics, the natural numbers are the ordinary whole numbers used for counting and ordering . These purposes are related to the linguistic notions of cardinal and ordinal numbers, respectively...

s to some set X is called a sequence space
Sequence space
In functional analysis and related areas of mathematics, a sequence space is a vector space whose elements are infinite sequences of real or complex numbers. Equivalently, it is a function space whose elements are functions from the natural numbers to the field K of real or complex numbers...

. It consists of the set of all possible sequences
Séquences
Séquences is a French-language film magazine originally published in Montreal, Quebec by the Commission des ciné-clubs du Centre catholique du cinéma de Montréal, a Roman Catholic film society. Founded in 1955, the publication was edited for forty years by Léo Bonneville, a member of the Clerics...

of elements of X.

In topology
Topology
Topology is a major area of mathematics concerned with properties that are preserved under continuous deformations of objects, such as deformations that involve stretching, but no tearing or gluing...

, one may attempt to put a topology on the space of continuous functions from a topological space
Topological space
Topological spaces are mathematical structures that allow the formal definition of concepts such as convergence, connectedness, and continuity. They appear in virtually every branch of modern mathematics and are a central unifying notion...

X to another one Y, with utility depending on the nature of the spaces. A commonly used example is the compact-open topology
Compact-open topology
In mathematics, the compact-open topology is a topology defined on the set of continuous maps between two topological spaces. The compact-open topology is one of the commonly-used topologies on function spaces, and is applied in homotopy theory and functional analysis...

, e.g. loop space. Also available is the product topology
Product topology
In topology and related areas of mathematics, a product space is the cartesian product of a family of topological spaces equipped with a natural topology called the product topology...

on the space of set theoretic functions (i.e. not necessarily continuous functions) Y^X. In this context, this topology is also referred to as the topology of pointwise convergence.

In algebraic topology
Algebraic topology
Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics which uses tools from abstract algebra to study topological spaces. The basic goal is to find algebraic invariants that classify topological spaces up to homeomorphism, though usually most classify up to homotopy equivalence.Although algebraic topology...

, the study of homotopy theory is essentially that of discrete invariants of function spaces;

In the theory of stochastic process
Stochastic process
In probability theory, a stochastic process , or sometimes random process, is the counterpart to a deterministic process...

es, the basic technical problem is how to construct a probability measure
Probability measure
In mathematics, a probability measure is a real-valued function defined on a set of events in a probability space that satisfies measure properties such as countable additivity...

on a function space of paths of the process (functions of time);

In category theory
Category theory
Category theory is an area of study in mathematics that examines in an abstract way the properties of particular mathematical concepts, by formalising them as collections of objects and arrows , where these collections satisfy certain basic conditions...

the function space is called an exponential object
Exponential object
In mathematics, specifically in category theory, an exponential object is the categorical equivalent of a function space in set theory. Categories with all finite products and exponential objects are called cartesian closed categories...

or map object
Exponential object
In mathematics, specifically in category theory, an exponential object is the categorical equivalent of a function space in set theory. Categories with all finite products and exponential objects are called cartesian closed categories...

. It appears in one way as the representation canonical bifunctor; but as (single) functor, of type [X, -], it appears as an adjoint functor to a functor of type (-×X) on objects;

In functional programming
Functional programming
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data. It emphasizes the application of functions, in contrast to the imperative programming style, which emphasizes changes in state...

and lambda calculus
Lambda calculus
In mathematical logic and computer science, lambda calculus, also written as λ-calculus, is a formal system for function definition, function application and recursion. The portion of lambda calculus relevant to computation is now called the untyped lambda calculus...

, function type
Function type
In computer science, a function type is the type of a variable or parameter to which a function has or can be assigned or the result type of a higher-order function returning a function....

s are used to express the idea of higher-order function
Higher-order function
In mathematics and computer science, higher-order functions, functional forms, or functionals are functions which do at least one of the following:*take one or more functions as an input*output a function...

s.

In domain theory
Domain theory
Domain theory is a branch of mathematics that studies special kinds of partially ordered sets commonly called domains. Consequently, domain theory can be considered as a branch of order theory. The field has major applications in computer science, where it is used to specify denotational...

, the basic idea is to find constructions from partial orders that can model lambda calculus, by creating a well-behaved cartesian closed category
Cartesian closed category
In category theory, a category is cartesian closed if, roughly speaking, any morphism defined on a product of two objects can be naturally identified with a morphism defined on one of the factors. These categories are particularly important in mathematical logic and the theory of programming, in...

.

Functional analysis

Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure and the linear operators acting upon these spaces and respecting these structures in a suitable sense...

is organized around adequate techniques to bring function spaces as topological vector space

Topological vector space

In mathematics, a topological vector space is one of the basic structures investigated in functional analysis...

s within reach of the ideas that would apply to normed spaces of finite dimension.

Schwartz space of smooth functions of rapid decrease and its dual, tempered distributions
Lp space
Lp space
In mathematics, the Lp spaces are function spaces defined using a natural generalization of the p-norm for finite-dimensional vector spaces...
κ(R) continuous functions with compact support endowed with the uniform norm topology
B(R) bounded continuous (Bounded function
Bounded function
In mathematics, a function f defined on some set X with real or complex values is called bounded, if the set of its values is bounded. In other words, there exists a real number M...

)
C_∞(R) continuous functions which vanish at infinity
C^r(R) continuous functions that have continuous first r derivatives.
C^∞(R) Smooth functions
C^∞_c smooth functions with compact support
D(R) compact support in limit topology
W^k,p Sobolev space
Sobolev space
In mathematics, a Sobolev space is a vector space of functions equipped with a norm that is a combination of Lp-norms of the function itself as well as its derivatives up to a given order. The derivatives are understood in a suitable weak sense to make the space complete, thus a Banach space...
O_U holomorphic functions
linear functions
piecewise linear functions
continuous functions, compact open topology
all functions, space of pointwise convergence
Hardy space
Hardy space
In complex analysis, the Hardy spaces Hp are certain spaces of holomorphic functions on the unit disk or upper half plane. They were introduced by Frigyes Riesz , who named them after G. H. Hardy, because of the paper...
Hölder space
Càdlàg
Càdlàg
In mathematics, a càdlàg , RCLL , or corlol function is a function defined on the real numbers that is everywhere right-continuous and has left limits everywhere...

functions, also known as the Skorokhod
Anatoliy Skorokhod
Anatoliy Volodymyrovych Skorokhod was a Soviet and Ukrainian mathematician, and an academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine from 1985 to his death in 2011....

space

Examples

Functional analysis

See also