In mathematics, a real structure on a complex vector space is a way to decompose the complex vector space in the direct sum of two real vector spaces. The prototype of such a structure is the field of complex numbers itself, considered as a complex vector space over itself and with the conjugation map :{\mathbb {C} }\to {\mathbb {C} }\,}
, with
, giving the "canonical" real structure on
, that is
.
The conjugation map is antilinear:
and
.