Matriks kovarians
Dina statistik, covariance matrix nyaruakeun konsép varian tina hiji ka n dimension, dina basa séjén, bentuk nilai-scalar random variable ka nilai-vector random variables (tuple tina variabel random skalar).  Lamun X mangrupa nilai-skalar variabel random nu mibanda nilai ekspektasi μ mangka variance-na nyaéta

Lamun X nyaéta hiji n-ku-1 nilai-vektor kolon variabel random whose expected value is an n-by-1 column vector μ then its variance is the n-by-n nonnegative-definite matrix

The entries in this matrix are the covariances between the n different scalar components of X.  Since the covariance between a scalar-valued random variable and itself is its variance, it follows that, in particular, the entries on the diagonal of this matrix are the variances of the scalar components of X.  This may appéar to be a property of this matrix that depends on which coordinate system is chosen for the space in which the random vector X resides.  However, it is true generally that if u is any unit vector, then the variance of the projection of X on u is uTΣu.  (This point is expanded upon somewhat at .  It is a consequence of an identity that appéars below.)

Nomenclatures differ.  Some statisticians, following the probabilist William Feller, call this the variance of the random vector X, because it is the natural generalization to higher dimensions of the 1-dimensional variance.  Others call it the covariance matrix, because it is the matrix of covariances between the scalar components of the vector X.

With scalar-valued random variables X, we have the identity

if a is constant, i.e., not random.  If X is an n-by-1 column vector-valued random variable and A is an m-by-n constant (i.e., non-random) matrix, then AX is an m-by-1 column vector-valued random variable, whose variance must therefore be an m-by-m matrix.  It is

This covariance matrix (though very simple) is a very useful tool in many
very different aréas. From it a transformation matrix can be derived
that allows one to completely decorrelate
the data or, from a different point of view, to find an optimal basis
for representing the data in a compact way.
This is called PCA (principal components analysis) in statistics and KL-Transform  (Karhunen-Loéve transform) in image processing.

Statistika