Playground edit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Special case of covariance matrices edit

A covariance matrix   can be represented as the product  . Its eigenvalues are positive:

 
 
 
 
 

The eigenvectors are orthogonal to one another:

 
 
 
 
 
  (different eigenvalues, in case of multiplicity, the basis can be orthogonalized)

The Rayleigh quotient can be expressed as a function of the eigenvalues by decomposing any vector   on the basis of eigenvectors:

 
 
 

Which, by orthogonality of the eigenvectors, becomes:

 

If a vector   maximizes  , then any vector   (for  ) also maximizes it, one can reduce to the Lagrange problem of maximizing   under the constrainst that  .

Since all the eingenvalues are non-negative, the problem is convex and the maximum occurs on the edges of the domain, namely when   and   (when the eigenvalues are ordered in decreasing magnitude).

This property is the basis for principal components analysis and canonical correlation.