The inverse image (or preimage) of a given subset
of the codomain of
is the set of all elements of the domain that map to the members of
Inverse image
Let
be a function from
to
The preimage or inverse image of a set
under
denoted by
is the subset of
defined by
![{\displaystyle f^{-1}[B]=\{x\in X\,|\,f(x)\in B\}}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/6d77c1116d2ce64b37e2423e79e466bcffb466e1)
.
Other notations include
and
. The inverse image of a singleton set, denoted by
or by
is also called the fiber or fiber over
or the level set of
. The set of all the fibers over the elements of
is a family of sets indexed by
.
For example, for the function
the inverse image of
would be
. Again, if there is no risk of confusion,
can be denoted by
and
can also be thought of as a function from the power set of
to the power set of
The notation
should not be confused with that for inverse function, although it coincides with the usual one for bijections in that the inverse image of
under
is the image of
under