The identity matrix In of size n is an n×n square matrix with ones on the diagonal and zeros elsewhere:
In=10⋮001⋮0……⋱…00⋮1
It can be defined by its entries using the Kronecker delta as
(In)ij=δij
Properties#
- Given an n×m matrix A, matrix multiplication of A with the identity matrix does not result in any change: InA=AIm=A.
- The rank of the identity matrix is its size: rank In=n.
- The trace is also equal to its size: Tr In=n.
- The determinant is one regardless of size: detIn=1.