This is also the space of real, symmetric bilinear forms in $\Bbb R^n$.



Does the space of $n \times n$, positive-definite, self-adjoint, real matrices have a better name?
Two possible answers:


* Standard jargon is **SPD** (for "symmetric positive-definite").
* This isn't exactly a "name," but the n x n symmetric positive-definite matrices are exactly those matrices A such that the bilinear function (x, y) -> yTAx defines an inner product on **R**n. Conversely, every bilinear function is of that form for some A, so with some abuse of terminology, you could equate the set of those matrices with the set of inner products on **R**n.


There are many other ways to characterize SPD matrices, but that's the only one I can think of at the moment that can be summarized as a single noun phrase. 


