maykot
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First of all, I'm not sure if this thread belongs here or at the "Special & General Relativity" sub-forum, if I posted at the wrong place please move it.
I encountered this problem working in my master's degree.
I need to find the stress-energy tensor of the following lagrangian:
\mathcal{L} = -\frac{1}{4}F^{\alpha\beta}F_{\alpha\beta} - j^{\alpha}A_{\alpha}
Where: F_{\alpha\beta}=\partial _{\alpha} A_{\beta} - \partial _{\beta} A_{\alpha}
Also, I'm working in curved space-time with the (+---) sign convention.
T^{\mu\nu} = \frac{2}{\sqrt{-g}} \frac{\delta S}{\delta g_{\mu\nu}} = 2 \frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial g_{\mu\nu}}-g^{\mu\nu} \mathcal{L}
\frac{\partial g_{\alpha\beta}}{\partial g_{\mu\nu}} = \delta ^{\mu}_{\alpha} \delta ^{\nu} _{\beta}
I raised the indices of all the tensors in the lagrangian (F_{\alpha\beta}=g_{\alpha\rho} g_{\beta\sigma}F^{\rho\sigma}, A_{\alpha}=g_{\alpha\rho} A^{\rho}), considered all of the contravariant tensors constant with respect to g_{\mu\nu} and then used the definition of the SET above and the formula above for the derivatives of the metric, resulting in:
T^{\mu\nu} = \frac{1}{4} g^{\mu\nu}F_{\alpha\beta}F^{\alpha\beta} + g_{\alpha\beta} F^{\mu\alpha} F^{\beta\nu} + g^{\mu\nu}j_{\alpha} A^{\alpha} - 2j^{\mu} A^{\nu}
The problem is this is not the usual expression found in textbooks. Greiner, in his book Field Quantization, for instance, uses the Belinfante-Rosenfeld method to improve the canonical SET and finds:
T^{\mu\nu} = \frac{1}{4} g^{\mu\nu}F_{\alpha\beta}F^{\alpha\beta} + g_{\alpha\beta} F^{\mu\alpha} F^{\beta\nu} + g^{\mu\nu}j_{\alpha} A^{\alpha} - j^{\mu} A^{\nu}
The only difference being the absence of the factor two in the last term.
Besides that, I cannot help but feel uncomfortable with the procedure I used to get to the SET.
Take the last term for example, making the following change in the lagrangian: j^{\alpha}A_{\alpha}=j_{\alpha}A^{\alpha}, the last term in the SET goes from -2j^{\mu} A^{\nu} to -2j^{\nu} A^{\mu}.
Since this could in principle be done for any pair of vector fields this would imply that: A^{\mu} B^{\nu}=A^{\nu} B^{\mu} for any A and B, which is not true.
I am not sure what is wrong with my calculations, if someone could help me pointing it out I would be very grateful.
Homework Statement
I encountered this problem working in my master's degree.
I need to find the stress-energy tensor of the following lagrangian:
\mathcal{L} = -\frac{1}{4}F^{\alpha\beta}F_{\alpha\beta} - j^{\alpha}A_{\alpha}
Where: F_{\alpha\beta}=\partial _{\alpha} A_{\beta} - \partial _{\beta} A_{\alpha}
Also, I'm working in curved space-time with the (+---) sign convention.
Homework Equations
T^{\mu\nu} = \frac{2}{\sqrt{-g}} \frac{\delta S}{\delta g_{\mu\nu}} = 2 \frac{\partial \mathcal{L}}{\partial g_{\mu\nu}}-g^{\mu\nu} \mathcal{L}
\frac{\partial g_{\alpha\beta}}{\partial g_{\mu\nu}} = \delta ^{\mu}_{\alpha} \delta ^{\nu} _{\beta}
The Attempt at a Solution
I raised the indices of all the tensors in the lagrangian (F_{\alpha\beta}=g_{\alpha\rho} g_{\beta\sigma}F^{\rho\sigma}, A_{\alpha}=g_{\alpha\rho} A^{\rho}), considered all of the contravariant tensors constant with respect to g_{\mu\nu} and then used the definition of the SET above and the formula above for the derivatives of the metric, resulting in:
T^{\mu\nu} = \frac{1}{4} g^{\mu\nu}F_{\alpha\beta}F^{\alpha\beta} + g_{\alpha\beta} F^{\mu\alpha} F^{\beta\nu} + g^{\mu\nu}j_{\alpha} A^{\alpha} - 2j^{\mu} A^{\nu}
The problem is this is not the usual expression found in textbooks. Greiner, in his book Field Quantization, for instance, uses the Belinfante-Rosenfeld method to improve the canonical SET and finds:
T^{\mu\nu} = \frac{1}{4} g^{\mu\nu}F_{\alpha\beta}F^{\alpha\beta} + g_{\alpha\beta} F^{\mu\alpha} F^{\beta\nu} + g^{\mu\nu}j_{\alpha} A^{\alpha} - j^{\mu} A^{\nu}
The only difference being the absence of the factor two in the last term.
Besides that, I cannot help but feel uncomfortable with the procedure I used to get to the SET.
Take the last term for example, making the following change in the lagrangian: j^{\alpha}A_{\alpha}=j_{\alpha}A^{\alpha}, the last term in the SET goes from -2j^{\mu} A^{\nu} to -2j^{\nu} A^{\mu}.
Since this could in principle be done for any pair of vector fields this would imply that: A^{\mu} B^{\nu}=A^{\nu} B^{\mu} for any A and B, which is not true.
I am not sure what is wrong with my calculations, if someone could help me pointing it out I would be very grateful.