Infunctional analysis, a branch ofmathematics, thestrong operator topology, often abbreviatedSOT, is thelocally convextopology on the set ofbounded operators on aHilbert spaceH induced by theseminorms of the form, asx varies inH.
Equivalently, it is thecoarsest topology such that, for each fixedx inH, the evaluation map (taking values inH) is continuous in T. The equivalence of these two definitions can be seen by observing that asubbase for both topologies is given by the sets (whereT0 is any bounded operator onH,x is any vector and ε is any positive real number).
In concrete terms, this means that in the strong operator topology if and only if for eachx inH.
The SOT isstronger than theweak operator topology and weaker than thenorm topology.
The SOT lacks some of the nicer properties that theweak operator topology has, but being stronger, things are sometimes easier to prove in this topology. It can be viewed as more natural, too, since it is simply the topology of pointwise convergence.
The SOT topology also provides the framework for themeasurable functional calculus, just as the norm topology does for thecontinuous functional calculus.
Thelinear functionals on the set of bounded operators on a Hilbert space that are continuous in the SOT are precisely those continuous in theweak operator topology (WOT). Because of this, the closure of aconvex set of operators in the WOT is the same as the closure of that set in the SOT.
This language translates into convergence properties of Hilbert space operators. For a complex Hilbert space, it is easy to verify by the polarization identity, that Strong Operator convergence implies Weak Operator convergence.