Covariance matrix
Measure of covariance of components of a random vector / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In probability theory and statistics, a covariance matrix (also known as auto-covariance matrix, dispersion matrix, variance matrix, or variance–covariance matrix) is a square matrix giving the covariance between each pair of elements of a given random vector.
Intuitively, the covariance matrix generalizes the notion of variance to multiple dimensions. As an example, the variation in a collection of random points in two-dimensional space cannot be characterized fully by a single number, nor would the variances in the and directions contain all of the necessary information; a matrix would be necessary to fully characterize the two-dimensional variation.
Any covariance matrix is symmetric and positive semi-definite and its main diagonal contains variances (i.e., the covariance of each element with itself).
The covariance matrix of a random vector is typically denoted by , or .