Generalized products and associated structures on Euclidean spaces (Q4359671)

Let \(u_1,\dots, u_m\) denote elements of \(\mathbb{R}^n\), where \(1\leq m<n\), and let \(e_{m+1}\) be an element of the exterior power \(\Lambda^{m+1}(\mathbb{R}^n)\). Then \(u_1\times\cdots\times u_m:= e_{m+1}\lfloor(u_1\wedge\cdots \wedge u_m)\), where \(\lfloor\) is the right interior product, is an alternating multilinear function with values in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), which, for suitable choices of \(e_{m+1}\), will satisfy the additional conditions \((u_1\times \cdots\times u_m)\cdot u_i= 0\) \((1\leq i\leq m)\) for a generalized vector product. Replacing \(e_{m+1}\) by \(e_m\in \Lambda^m(\mathbb{R}^n)\) in the above construction yields a determinant-like scalar function, and from this the authors derive generalized determinants and inverses of \(m\times n\) matrices. Connections with the Moore-Penrose inverse are explained.