In linear algebra, the trace of an n-by-n square matrix A is defined to be the sum of the elements on the main diagonal (the diagonal from the upper left to the lower right) of A, i.e.,

where a_nn denotes the entry on the n-th row and n-th column of A. The trace of a matrix is the sum of the (complex) eigenvalues, and it is invariant with respect to a change of basis. This characterization can be used to define the trace of a linear operator in general. Note that the trace is only defined for a square matrix (i.e., n × n).