In mathematics, an integration by parts operator is a linear operator used to formulate integration by parts formulae; the most interesting examples of integration by parts operators occur in infinite-dimensional settings and find uses in stochastic analysis and its applications.
Let E be a Banach space such that both E and its continuous dual space E∗ are separable spaces; let μ be a Borel measure on E. Let S be any (fixed) subset of the class of functions defined on E. A linear operator A : S → L2(E, μ; R) is said to be an integration by parts operator for μ if for every C1 function φ : E → R and all h ∈ S for which either side of the above equality makes sense.
In the above, Dφ(x) denotes the Fréchet derivative of φ at x.