Bounded operator
In functional analysis, a branch of mathematics, a bounded linear operator is a linear transformation L between normed vector spaces X and Y for which the ratio of the norm of L(v) to that of v is bounded by the same number, over all non-zero vectors v in X. In other words, there exists some M > 0 such that for all v in X
The smallest such M is called the operator norm of L.
A bounded linear operator is generally not a bounded function; the latter would require that the norm of L(v) be bounded for all v, which is not possible unless Y is the zero vector space. Rather, a bounded linear operator is a locally bounded function.
A linear operator between normed spaces is bounded if and only if it is continuous, and by linearity, if and only if it is continuous at zero.
As stated in the introduction, a linear operator L between normed spaces X and Y is bounded if and only if it is a continuous linear operator. The proof is as follows.
Not every linear operator between normed spaces is bounded. Let X be the space of all trigonometric polynomials defined on [−π, π], with the norm
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