Include characters with accents and diereses within square root

Could someone please let me know how to include the s-with-a-hat character (\^{s}) within a square root. I hoped $\sqrt{ \^{s} }$ would do the job.

• this is unrelated to square root, you need hat rather than ^ in math mode. – David Carlisle Jan 3 '15 at 13:25

Building on @karlkoeller 's answer - you can use \text and \emph in math mode. This may not get the italicized variable names quite right. Clearly needs work for accents below the letter.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}
$\sqrt{\hat{s}}$ $\sqrt{\text{\emph{\"s}}}$
$\sqrt{\text{\emph{\v{s}}}}$ $\sqrt{\text{\emph{\c{s}}}}$
\end{document}

• I'd prefer $\sqrt{\ddot{s}}$ to $\sqrt{\text{\emph{\"s}}}$, at least for situations that involve the second derivative with respect to time... The placement of the cedilla below the italic-s is much improved by loading either the lmodern package or the fontenc package with option T1, by the way. – Mico Jan 3 '15 at 14:18
• Sorry, but this is wrong. It could be only for the cedilla, but for hat, double dot and check accents, one should use \hat{s}, \ddot{s} and \check{s}. Note also that $\sqrt{\text{\emph{\"s}}}$ would result in an upright s when in the statement of a theorem or anywhere italics is used. – egreg Jan 3 '15 at 14:41
• @egreg I knew (and said) the \emph was a hack. Without knowing the OP's use cases I don't know whether that's a problem. – Ethan Bolker Jan 3 '15 at 15:31

Probably you are looking for the \hat command.

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
$\sqrt{\hat{s}}$
\end{document}