LaTeX hat(^) symbol – Circumflex or Caret

In this tutorial, we will learn how to print Hat symbol in LaTeX. Then we will also learn to write the caret or circumflex symbol in Latex.

The simplest way to write this symbol without using any external package is:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\^{x}
\end{document}

Output:

Using \hat command to write hat symbol

We can write the Hat symbol in Latex using \hat{character}. It’s the simplest way to write that symbol. But you can use hat symbol over a single character using this command.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
$\hat{x}$
\end{document}

Output:

I have used math mode here.

If you use multiple characters inside \hat{} then it will not write hat symbol over multiple characters.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
$\hat{abcd}$
\end{document}

Output:

Hat symbol over multiple characters in LaTeX

If you want to write hat symbol over multiple characters you can use \widehat{}command.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
$\widehat{abcd}$
\end{document}

Output:

If you need a bold symbol with a hat, you can use \bmcommand of bm package like this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{bm}
\begin{document}
$\hat{\bm{x}}$
\end{document}

Output:

Using \overset and \wedge commands to write hat symbol

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
$\overset{\wedge}{h}$
\end{document}

Output:

\vu command to print hat symbol

We can use \vu command of the physics package to write hat symbol. It will be better to show with an example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{physics}
\begin{document}
$\vu{x}$
\end{document}

Output:

If you do not like the font style of x you can use this: $\vu*{x}$. * will change the font style of x to greek.

Circumflex or caret symbol in LaTeX

Although the hat symbol and caret/Circumflex symbol look similar, we write the hat symbol generally over letters but we can write the Circumflex or Caret symbol anywhere we want.

Let’s check all the examples one by one.

We can simply print the circumflex symbol like this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
$\wedge$
\end{document}

Output:

But if we add characters beside or before this, it will not be over the characters.

Write the circumflex symbol below a character

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\begin{document}
$\underset{\wedge}{h}$
\end{document}

Output: