|
Synchronous Coordinates
A synchronous frame is a reference frame in which the time coordinate defines proper time for all co-moving observers. It is built by choosing some constant time hypersurface as an origin, such that has in every point a normal along the time line and a light cone with an apex in that point can be constructed; all interval elements on this hypersurface are space-like. A family of geodesics normal to this hypersurface are drawn and defined as the time coordinates with a beginning at the hypersurface. In terms of metric-tensor components g_, a synchronous frame is defined such that :g_=1,\quad g_=0 where \alpha=1,2,3. Such a construct, and hence, choice of synchronous frame, is always possible though it is not unique. It allows any transformation of space coordinates that does not depend on time and, additionally, a transformation brought about by the arbitrary choice of hypersurface used for this geometric construct. Synchronization in an arbitrary frame of reference Synchroni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coordinate
In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The order of the coordinates is significant, and they are sometimes identified by their position in an ordered tuple and sometimes by a letter, as in "the ''x''-coordinate". The coordinates are taken to be real numbers in elementary mathematics, but may be complex numbers or elements of a more abstract system such as a commutative ring. The use of a coordinate system allows problems in geometry to be translated into problems about numbers and ''vice versa''; this is the basis of analytic geometry. Common coordinate systems Number line The simplest example of a coordinate system is the identification of points on a line with real numbers using the ''number line''. In this system, an arbitrary point ''O'' (the ''origin'') is chosen on a given line. The coordinate of a po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamilton–Jacobi Equation
In physics, the Hamilton–Jacobi equation, named after William Rowan Hamilton and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, is an alternative formulation of classical mechanics, equivalent to other formulations such as Newton's laws of motion, Lagrangian mechanics and Hamiltonian mechanics. The Hamilton–Jacobi equation is particularly useful in identifying conserved quantities for mechanical systems, which may be possible even when the mechanical problem itself cannot be solved completely. The Hamilton–Jacobi equation is also the only formulation of mechanics in which the motion of a particle can be represented as a wave. In this sense, it fulfilled a long-held goal of theoretical physics (dating at least to Johann Bernoulli in the eighteenth century) of finding an analogy between the propagation of light and the motion of a particle. The wave equation followed by mechanical systems is similar to, but not identical with, Schrödinger's equation, as described below; for this reason, the Ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euclidean Metric
In mathematics, the Euclidean distance between two points in Euclidean space is the length of a line segment between the two points. It can be calculated from the Cartesian coordinates of the points using the Pythagorean theorem, therefore occasionally being called the Pythagorean distance. These names come from the ancient Greek mathematicians Euclid and Pythagoras, although Euclid did not represent distances as numbers, and the connection from the Pythagorean theorem to distance calculation was not made until the 18th century. The distance between two objects that are not points is usually defined to be the smallest distance among pairs of points from the two objects. Formulas are known for computing distances between different types of objects, such as the distance from a point to a line. In advanced mathematics, the concept of distance has been generalized to abstract metric spaces, and other distances than Euclidean have been studied. In some applications in statistics an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riemann Tensor
In the mathematical field of differential geometry, the Riemann curvature tensor or Riemann–Christoffel tensor (after Bernhard Riemann and Elwin Bruno Christoffel) is the most common way used to express the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. It assigns a tensor to each point of a Riemannian manifold (i.e., it is a tensor field). It is a local invariant of Riemannian metrics which measures the failure of the second covariant derivatives to commute. A Riemannian manifold has zero curvature if and only if it is ''flat'', i.e. locally isometric to the Euclidean space. The curvature tensor can also be defined for any pseudo-Riemannian manifold, or indeed any manifold equipped with an affine connection. It is a central mathematical tool in the theory of general relativity, the modern theory of gravity, and the curvature of spacetime is in principle observable via the geodesic deviation equation. The curvature tensor represents the tidal force experienced by a rigid body moving alo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gravitational Field
In physics, a gravitational field is a model used to explain the influences that a massive body extends into the space around itself, producing a force on another massive body. Thus, a gravitational field is used to explain gravitational phenomena, and is measured in newtons per kilogram (N/kg). Equivalently, it is measured in meters per second squared (m/s2). In its original concept, gravity was a force between point masses. Following Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon Laplace attempted to model gravity as some kind of radiation field or fluid, and since the 19th century, explanations for gravity have usually been taught in terms of a field model, rather than a point attraction. In a field model, rather than two particles attracting each other, the particles distort spacetime via their mass, and this distortion is what is perceived and measured as a "force". In such a model one states that matter moves in certain ways in response to the curvature of spacetime, and that there is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ricci Tensor
In differential geometry, the Ricci curvature tensor, named after Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, is a geometric object which is determined by a choice of Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian metric on a manifold. It can be considered, broadly, as a measure of the degree to which the geometry of a given metric tensor differs locally from that of ordinary Euclidean space or pseudo-Euclidean space. The Ricci tensor can be characterized by measurement of how a shape is deformed as one moves along geodesics in the space. In general relativity, which involves the pseudo-Riemannian setting, this is reflected by the presence of the Ricci tensor in the Raychaudhuri equation. Partly for this reason, the Einstein field equations propose that spacetime can be described by a pseudo-Riemannian metric, with a strikingly simple relationship between the Ricci tensor and the matter content of the universe. Like the metric tensor, the Ricci tensor assigns to each tangent space of the manifold a symmetric bili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christoffel Symbols
In mathematics and physics, the Christoffel symbols are an array of numbers describing a metric connection. The metric connection is a specialization of the affine connection to surfaces or other manifolds endowed with a metric, allowing distances to be measured on that surface. In differential geometry, an affine connection can be defined without reference to a metric, and many additional concepts follow: parallel transport, covariant derivatives, geodesics, etc. also do not require the concept of a metric. However, when a metric is available, these concepts can be directly tied to the "shape" of the manifold itself; that shape is determined by how the tangent space is attached to the cotangent space by the metric tensor. Abstractly, one would say that the manifold has an associated (orthonormal) frame bundle, with each "frame" being a possible choice of a coordinate frame. An invariant metric implies that the structure group of the frame bundle is the orthogonal group . As a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Fundamental Form
In differential geometry, the second fundamental form (or shape tensor) is a quadratic form on the tangent plane of a smooth surface in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, usually denoted by \mathrm (read "two"). Together with the first fundamental form, it serves to define extrinsic invariants of the surface, its principal curvatures. More generally, such a quadratic form is defined for a smooth immersed submanifold in a Riemannian manifold. Surface in R3 Motivation The second fundamental form of a parametric surface in was introduced and studied by Gauss. First suppose that the surface is the graph of a twice continuously differentiable function, , and that the plane is tangent to the surface at the origin. Then and its partial derivatives with respect to and vanish at (0,0). Therefore, the Taylor expansion of ''f'' at (0,0) starts with quadratic terms: : z=L\frac + Mxy + N\frac + \text\,, and the second fundamental form at the origin in the coordinates is the qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Einstein Field Equations
In the general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it. The equations were published by Einstein in 1915 in the form of a tensor equation which related the local ' (expressed by the Einstein tensor) with the local energy, momentum and stress within that spacetime (expressed by the stress–energy tensor). Analogously to the way that electromagnetic fields are related to the distribution of charges and currents via Maxwell's equations, the EFE relate the spacetime geometry to the distribution of mass–energy, momentum and stress, that is, they determine the metric tensor of spacetime for a given arrangement of stress–energy–momentum in the spacetime. The relationship between the metric tensor and the Einstein tensor allows the EFE to be written as a set of nonlinear partial differential equations when used in this way. The solutions of the EFE are t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gravitational Singularity
A gravitational singularity, spacetime singularity or simply singularity is a condition in which gravitational field, gravity is so intense that spacetime itself breaks down catastrophically. As such, a singularity is by definition no longer part of the regular spacetime and cannot be determined by "where" or "when". Gravitational singularities exist at a junction between general relativity and quantum mechanics; therefore, the properties of the singularity cannot be described without an established theory of quantum gravity. Trying to find a complete and precise definition of singularities in the theory of general relativity, the current best theory of gravity, remains a difficult problem. A singularity in general relativity can be defined by the Curvature invariant (general relativity), scalar invariant Curvature of Riemannian manifolds, curvature becoming Infinity, infinite or, better, by a Geodesics in general relativity, geodesic being Geodesic manifold#Non-examples, incom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CMBFAST
In physical cosmology, CMBFAST is a computer code, written by Uroš Seljak and Matias Zaldarriaga, for computing the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background. It was the first efficient program to do so, reducing the time taken to compute the anisotropy from several days to a few minutes by using a novel semi-analytic line-of-sight approach. References *ThCMBFASTwebsite on LAMBDA NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ... project page. * Physical cosmology {{physical-cosmology-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosmological Perturbation Theory
In physical cosmology, cosmological perturbation theory is the theory by which the ''evolution of structure'' is understood in the Big Bang model. It uses general relativity to compute the gravitational forces causing small perturbations to grow and eventually seed the formation of stars, quasars, galaxies and clusters. It only applies to situations in which the universe is predominantly homogeneous, such as during cosmic inflation and large parts of the Big Bang. The universe is believed to still be homogeneous enough that the theory is a good approximation on the largest scales, but on smaller scales more involved techniques, such as N-body simulations, must be used. Because of the gauge invariance of general relativity, the correct formulation of cosmological perturbation theory is subtle. In particular, when describing an inhomogeneous spacetime there is often not a preferred coordinate choice. There are currently two distinct approaches to perturbation theory in classical gener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
