Perusal of research articles that deal with the topic of matrix calculus reveal two different approaches to calculation of the gradient of a real-valued function of a symmetric matrix leading to two different results. In the mechanics and physics communities, the gradient is calculated using the definition of a \frechet derivative, irrespective of whether the argument is symmetric or not. However, members of the statistics, economics, and electrical engineering communities use another notion of the gradient that explicitly takes into account the symmetry of the matrix, and this "symmetric gradient" $G_s$ is reported to be related to the gradient $G$ computed from the \frechet derivative with respect to a general matrix as $G_s = G + G^T - G \circ I$, where $\circ$ denotes the elementwise Hadamard product of the two matrices. We demonstrate that this relation is incorrect, and reconcile both these viewpoints by proving that $G_s = \mathrm{sym}(G)$.
翻译:处理矩阵微积分专题的秘鲁研究文章揭示了两种不同的计算方法,即计算对称矩阵实际作用价值的梯度,从而得出两种不同的结果。在机械界和物理学界,梯度是使用\frechet衍生物的定义计算的,而不管其论点是否对称性。然而,统计、经济学和电气工程界的成员使用另一个梯度概念,明确考虑到矩阵的对称性,这种“对称梯度” $G_s,据报告与以$G_s = G+ GáT - G\cic I$为总矩阵计算的梯度$G$有关,其中$crc$表示两个矩阵的Hadamard产元素。我们证明这种关系是不正确的,并通过证明$s=\mathrm{sym}(G)美元来调和这两种观点。