# How to display “^” (circumflex /hat/caret) in LaTeX?

There are several methods of printing the circumflex, hat, or caret ^ symbol on a LaTeX document. Some of these are used in math mode and some in text mode. All these methods are discussed in this tutorial.

## Circumflex, hat, or caret symbol in math mode

LaTeX provides three commands to use this symbol in math mode, which are: \hat{}, \wedge, and \widehat{}. You will see some differences in the output of these three commands.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{MnSymbol} % For \longrightarrow command
\begin{document}
$$\verb|\hat{}|\longrightarrow \hat{}$$
$$\verb|\wedge|\longrightarrow \wedge$$
$$\verb|\widehat{}|\longrightarrow \widehat{}$$
\end{document}

Output :

You can also print this symbol above a letter by passing arguments to the \hat{} and \widehat{} commands. With the \widehat{} command, you can also pass three letters as arguments, since the ^ symbol is slightly wider in the output of this command. But with the \wedge command, you cannot use the ^ symbol above any letter.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{MnSymbol} % For \longrightarrow command
\begin{document}
$$\verb|\hat{a}|\longrightarrow \hat{a}$$
$$\verb|\widehat{abc}|\longrightarrow \widehat{abc}$$
$$\verb|\widehat{ab}|\longrightarrow \widehat{ab}$$
$$\verb|\widehat{a}|\longrightarrow \widehat{a}$$
$$\verb|a\wedge b|\longrightarrow a\wedge b$$
\end{document}

Output :

## Circumflex, hat, or caret symbol in text mode

There are two commands to use the circumflex, hat, or caret ^ symbol in Latex’s text mode, which are \textasciicircum and \^{}. You will see similar output for both commands.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{MnSymbol} % For \longrightarrow command
\begin{document}
\verb|\textasciicircum|$\longrightarrow$ \textasciicircum \\[4pt]
\verb|\^{}|$\longrightarrow$ \^{}
\end{document}

Output :

Meanwhile, the \textasciicircum command does not allow you to print the ^ symbol over any letter. But you can print this symbol over any letter by passing arguments to the \^{} command. Take a look

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{MnSymbol} % For \longrightarrow command
\begin{document}
\verb|\^{o}|$\longrightarrow$ \^{o}\\[4pt]
\verb|a\textasciicircum b|$\longrightarrow$ a\textasciicircum b
\end{document}

Output :

## Some other way to print the “^” symbol

There are three other ways to print this symbol in a LaTeX document, which are \string^, \char\^, or \verb!^! commands. You can also write the \verb!^! command like this \verb|^|. And these commands work in both math mode and text mode of LaTeX.

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{lcc}
Command          &   Text mode   &   Math mode   \\ \hline
\verb|\string^|  &   \string^    &   $\string^$  \\
\verb|\char\^|  &   \char\^    &   $\char\^$  \\
\verb|\verb!^!|  &   \verb!^!    &   $\verb!^!$  \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Output :