REVIEW

Quadratic forms
a function f : Rn → R of the form
f(x) a = xTAx =
n
Xi,j=1
Aijxixj
is called a quadratic form
in a quadratic form we may as well assume A = AT since
xTAx = xT ((A + AT )/2)x
((A + AT )/2 is called the symmetric part of A)
uniqueness: if xTAx = xTBx for all x ∈ Rn and A = AT , B = BT ,
then
A=B.

Examples
• kBxk2 = xTBTBx
• Pn−1
i=1 (xi+1 − xi)2
• kFxk2 − kGxk2
sets defined by quadratic forms:
• { x | f(x) = a } is called a quadratic surface
• { x | f(x) ≤ a } is called a quadratic region

Quadratic Forms and Eigenvalues: Let A be an n × n symmetric matrix. Then a

quadratic
form xTAx is:

(a) positive definite if, and only if the eigenvalues of A are all positive.
(b) negative definite if, and only if the eigenvalues of A are all negative.
(c) positive semidefinite if, and only if one eigenvalue of A is 0, and the others are positive.
(d) Negative semi definite if, and only if one eigenvalue of A is 0, and the others are
negative.
(e) Indefinite if, and only if A has both positive and negative eigenvalues.

Positive Definite Quadratic Form

A quadratic form is said to be positive definite if for . A real quadratic form in

variables is positive definite if its canonical form is

A binary quadratic form

Of two real variables is positive definite if it is for any , therefore if and

the binary quadratic form discriminant . A binary quadratic form is positive
definite if there exist nonzero and such that

The positive definite quadratic form

Is said to be reduced if , and if or . Under the action of the general

linear group , i.e., under the set of linear transformations of coordinates with
integer coefficients and determinant , there exists a unique reduced positive definite binary
quadratic form equivalent to any given one.

There exists a one-to-one correspondence between the set of reduced quadratic forms with
fundamental discriminant and the set of classes of fractional ideals of the unique
quadratic field with discriminant . Let be a reduced positive definite binary
quadratic form with fundamental discriminant , and consider the map which maps the
form to the ideal class containing the ideal . Then this map is one-to-one
and onto. Thus, the class number of the imaginary quadratic field is equal to the
number of reduced binary quadratic forms of discriminant , which can be easily computed
by systematically constructing all binary quadratic forms of discriminant by looping over
the coefficients and . The third coefficient is then determined by , , and .

A quadratic form is positive definite iff every eigenvalue of is positive. A quadratic

form with a Hermitian matrix is positive definite if all the principal minors in the
top-left corner of are positive, in other words

Submitted by:-
Devendra Pratap Singh
E6001
RE6001B47