Crthuky

I am trying to make a symbol for a "twisted product". I've tried stackrel:

$A mathbinstackrelsimtimes B$

but the sim floats too high above the times, causing unpleasant line spacing. I've also tried widetilde

$A mathbinwidetildetimes B$ 

but it has the same problem. Ideally I'd like the tilde to have the same width as the times and for the spacing between the two to be pretty tight.

Detexify didn't help, so maybe you really have to do it yourself:

newcommandsimtimesmathbin%
 stackrelsimsmashtimesrule0pt0.9ex%
 

Adjust the 0.9ex to your needs.

For slightly improved spacing displayed and inline, you can use ooalign. The code is

newcommandtwprodmathbin%
 ooalignraise1.15exhbox$scriptstylesim$crhidewidth$times$hidewidthcr%
 

If you will ever use the symbol in a subscript or superscript, mathchoice allows for greatly improved spacing in scriptstyle. The height of the sim is easily adjustable by changing the 1.15ex for display and inline, .85ex for script and (though I can't imagine using it) .65ex for scriptscript.

documentclassarticle

newcommandtwprodmathbinmathchoice%
 ooalignraise1.15exhbox$scriptstylesim$crhidewidth$times$hidewidthcr%
 ooalignraise1.15exhbox$scriptstylesim$crhidewidth$times$hidewidthcr%
 ooalignraise.85exhbox$scriptscriptstylesim$crhidewidth$scriptstyletimes$hidewidthcr%
 ooalignraise.65exhbox$scriptscriptstylesim$crhidewidth$scriptscriptstyletimes$hidewidthcr% 
 

begindocument

$S^2twprod S^2quad F_S^2twprod S^2$

enddocument

The parameters 0.7 and 0.3 might be needed adjustment if used with different fonts.

documentclassarticle
usepackageamsmath
usepackagegraphicx

% a general purpose macro
newcommandxmathpalette[2]mathchoice
 #1displaystyletextfont#2%
 #1textstyletextfont#2%
 #1scriptstylescriptfont#2%
 #1scriptscriptstylescriptscriptfont#2%


makeatletter
newcommandtwistedproduct%
 mathbinxmathpalettetwisted@productrelax%


newcommandtwisted@product[3]%
 vbox%
 ialignhfil##hfilcr
 scalebox0.7$m@th#1sim$cr
 noalignnointerlineskipkern-0.3fontdimen5 #2 2
 $m@th#1times$cr
 %
 %

makeatother

begindocument

$S^2twistedproduct S^2$ $X_twistedproduct_twistedproduct$

enddocument

The macro xmathpalette is an extension of mathpalette that makes also the font in the current style (textfont, scriptfont or scriptscriptfont). In this case we use it to access the x-height of the symbol font for the current style.