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Connection (vector Bundle)
In mathematics, and especially differential geometry and gauge theory, a connection on a fiber bundle is a device that defines a notion of parallel transport on the bundle; that is, a way to "connect" or identify fibers over nearby points. The most common case is that of a linear connection on a vector bundle, for which the notion of parallel transport must be linear. A linear connection is equivalently specified by a '' covariant derivative'', an operator that differentiates sections of the bundle along tangent directions in the base manifold, in such a way that parallel sections have derivative zero. Linear connections generalize, to arbitrary vector bundles, the Levi-Civita connection on the tangent bundle of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold, which gives a standard way to differentiate vector fields. Nonlinear connections generalize this concept to bundles whose fibers are not necessarily linear. Linear connections are also called Koszul connections after Jean-Louis Koszul, who g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metric Connection
In mathematics, a metric connection is a connection in a vector bundle ''E'' equipped with a bundle metric; that is, a metric for which the inner product of any two vectors will remain the same when those vectors are parallel transported along any curve. .(''Third edition: see chapter 3; Sixth edition: see chapter 4.'') This is equivalent to: * A connection for which the covariant derivatives of the metric on ''E'' vanish. * A principal connection on the bundle of orthonormal frames of ''E''. A special case of a metric connection is a Riemannian connection; there is a unique such which is torsion free, the Levi-Civita connection. In this case, the bundle ''E'' is the tangent bundle ''TM'' of a manifold, and the metric on ''E'' is induced by a Riemannian metric on ''M''. Another special case of a metric connection is a Yang–Mills connection, which satisfies the Yang–Mills equations of motion. Most of the machinery of defining a connection and its curvature can go through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riemannian Metric
In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold or Riemannian space , so called after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is a real, smooth manifold ''M'' equipped with a positive-definite inner product ''g''''p'' on the tangent space ''T''''p''''M'' at each point ''p''. The family ''g''''p'' of inner products is called a Riemannian metric (or Riemannian metric tensor). Riemannian geometry is the study of Riemannian manifolds. A common convention is to take ''g'' to be smooth, which means that for any smooth coordinate chart on ''M'', the ''n''2 functions :g\left(\frac,\frac\right):U\to\mathbb are smooth functions. These functions are commonly designated as g_. With further restrictions on the g_, one could also consider Lipschitz Riemannian metrics or measurable Riemannian metrics, among many other possibilities. A Riemannian metric (tensor) makes it possible to define several geometric notions on a Riemannian manifold, such as angle at an intersection, length of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudo-Riemannian Metric
In differential geometry, a pseudo-Riemannian manifold, also called a semi-Riemannian manifold, is a differentiable manifold with a metric tensor that is everywhere nondegenerate. This is a generalization of a Riemannian manifold in which the requirement of positive-definiteness is relaxed. Every tangent space of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold is a pseudo-Euclidean vector space. A special case used in general relativity is a four-dimensional Lorentzian manifold for modeling spacetime, where tangent vectors can be classified as timelike, null, and spacelike. Introduction Manifolds In differential geometry, a differentiable manifold is a space which is locally similar to a Euclidean space. In an ''n''-dimensional Euclidean space any point can be specified by ''n'' real numbers. These are called the coordinates of the point. An ''n''-dimensional differentiable manifold is a generalisation of ''n''-dimensional Euclidean space. In a manifold it may only be possible to defi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Partial Differential Equation
In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a Multivariable calculus, multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to how is thought of as an unknown number to be solved for in an algebraic equation like . However, it is usually impossible to write down explicit formulas for solutions of partial differential equations. There is, correspondingly, a vast amount of modern mathematical and scientific research on methods to Numerical methods for partial differential equations, numerically approximate solutions of certain partial differential equations using computers. Partial differential equations also occupy a large sector of pure mathematics, pure mathematical research, in which the usual questions are, broadly speaking, on the identification of general qualitative features of solutions of various partial differential equations, such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Product Rule
In calculus, the product rule (or Leibniz rule or Leibniz product rule) is a formula used to find the derivatives of products of two or more functions. For two functions, it may be stated in Lagrange's notation as (u \cdot v)' = u ' \cdot v + u \cdot v' or in Leibniz's notation as \frac (u\cdot v) = \frac \cdot v + u \cdot \frac. The rule may be extended or generalized to products of three or more functions, to a rule for higher-order derivatives of a product, and to other contexts. Discovery Discovery of this rule is credited to Gottfried Leibniz, who demonstrated it using differentials. (However, J. M. Child, a translator of Leibniz's papers, argues that it is due to Isaac Barrow.) Here is Leibniz's argument: Let ''u''(''x'') and ''v''(''x'') be two differentiable functions of ''x''. Then the differential of ''uv'' is : \begin d(u\cdot v) & = (u + du)\cdot (v + dv) - u\cdot v \\ & = u\cdot dv + v\cdot du + du\cdot dv. \end Since the term ''du''·''dv'' is "negligi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Covariant Derivative
In mathematics, the covariant derivative is a way of specifying a derivative along tangent vectors of a manifold. Alternatively, the covariant derivative is a way of introducing and working with a connection on a manifold by means of a differential operator, to be contrasted with the approach given by a principal connection on the frame bundle – see affine connection. In the special case of a manifold isometrically embedded into a higher-dimensional Euclidean space, the covariant derivative can be viewed as the orthogonal projection of the Euclidean directional derivative onto the manifold's tangent space. In this case the Euclidean derivative is broken into two parts, the extrinsic normal component (dependent on the embedding) and the intrinsic covariant derivative component. The name is motivated by the importance of changes of coordinate in physics: the covariant derivative transforms covariantly under a general coordinate transformation, that is, linearly via the Jacobia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tangent Space
In mathematics, the tangent space of a manifold generalizes to higher dimensions the notion of '' tangent planes'' to surfaces in three dimensions and ''tangent lines'' to curves in two dimensions. In the context of physics the tangent space to a manifold at a point can be viewed as the space of possible velocities for a particle moving on the manifold. Informal description In differential geometry, one can attach to every point x of a differentiable manifold a ''tangent space''—a real vector space that intuitively contains the possible directions in which one can tangentially pass through x . The elements of the tangent space at x are called the ''tangent vectors'' at x . This is a generalization of the notion of a vector, based at a given initial point, in a Euclidean space. The dimension of the tangent space at every point of a connected manifold is the same as that of the manifold itself. For example, if the given manifold is a 2 -sphere, then one can picture the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pushforward (differential)
In differential geometry, pushforward is a linear approximation of smooth maps on tangent spaces. Suppose that is a smooth map between smooth manifolds; then the differential of ''φ, d\varphi_x,'' at a point ''x'' is, in some sense, the best linear approximation of ''φ'' near ''x''. It can be viewed as a generalization of the total derivative of ordinary calculus. Explicitly, the differential is a linear map from the tangent space of ''M'' at ''x'' to the tangent space of ''N'' at ''φ''(''x''), d\varphi_x: T_xM \to T_N. Hence it can be used to ''push'' tangent vectors on ''M'' ''forward'' to tangent vectors on ''N''. The differential of a map ''φ'' is also called, by various authors, the derivative or total derivative of ''φ''. Motivation Let \varphi: U \to V be a smooth map from an open subset U of \R^m to an open subset V of \R^n. For any point x in U, the Jacobian of \varphi at x (with respect to the standard coordinates) is the matrix representation of the total d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linear Isomorphism
In mathematics, and more specifically in linear algebra, a linear map (also called a linear mapping, linear transformation, vector space homomorphism, or in some contexts linear function) is a mapping V \to W between two vector spaces that preserves the operations of vector addition and scalar multiplication. The same names and the same definition are also used for the more general case of modules over a ring; see Module homomorphism. If a linear map is a bijection then it is called a . In the case where V = W, a linear map is called a (linear) ''endomorphism''. Sometimes the term refers to this case, but the term "linear operator" can have different meanings for different conventions: for example, it can be used to emphasize that V and W are real vector spaces (not necessarily with V = W), or it can be used to emphasize that V is a function space, which is a common convention in functional analysis. Sometimes the term ''linear function'' has the same meaning as ''linear map'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallel Transport
In geometry, parallel transport (or parallel translation) is a way of transporting geometrical data along smooth curves in a manifold. If the manifold is equipped with an affine connection (a covariant derivative or connection (vector bundle), connection on the tangent bundle), then this connection allows one to transport vectors of the manifold along curves so that they stay ''parallel'' with respect to the connection. The parallel transport for a connection thus supplies a way of, in some sense, moving the local geometry of a manifold along a curve: that is, of ''connecting'' the geometries of nearby points. There may be many notions of parallel transport available, but a specification of one — one way of connecting up the geometries of points on a curve — is tantamount to providing a ''connection''. In fact, the usual notion of connection is the infinitesimal analog of parallel transport. Or, ''vice versa'', parallel transport is the local realization of a conne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundle Section
In the mathematical field of topology, a section (or cross section) of a fiber bundle E is a continuous right inverse of the projection function \pi. In other words, if E is a fiber bundle over a base space, B: : \pi \colon E \to B then a section of that fiber bundle is a continuous map, : \sigma \colon B \to E such that : \pi(\sigma(x)) = x for all x \in B . A section is an abstract characterization of what it means to be a graph. The graph of a function g\colon B \to Y can be identified with a function taking its values in the Cartesian product E = B \times Y , of B and Y : :\sigma\colon B\to E, \quad \sigma(x) = (x,g(x)) \in E. Let \pi\colon E \to B be the projection onto the first factor: \pi(x,y) = x . Then a graph is any function \sigma for which \pi(\sigma(x)) = x . The language of fibre bundles allows this notion of a section to be generalized to the case when E is not necessarily a Cartesian product. If \pi\colon E \to B is a fibre bundle, then a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
