Curvature forms and Riemannian curvatures of connections

In summary: I'm also far from wanting to deny this. I was more trying to think about the implications of the constraints imposed by the real physical world, and the physical event space-time, where we have in fact a concept of path dependence in the sense of covariance of the connection in the tangent bundle of such a space-time, as it is both physically and mathematically more fundamental than the tangent bundle of the base manifold itself, and therefore in this case it is the gauge bundle, and it is trivial in the case of Minkowski space, the only case I was thinking when I wrote that comment.And in this special context of a trivial bundle the curvature form and path independence is just a special case of the R
  • #36
RockyMarciano said:
Where did you get the number seven? I count 12 dimensions in the SM global principal bundle's fibre, 1+3+8=12

I literally just showed you how to get 7 in the very post you are quoting!
 
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  • #37
Ben Niehoff said:
I literally just showed you how to get 7 in the very post you are quoting!
No, what I am asking is where did you get the notion that only seven dimensions are required? required by whom?
 
  • #38
RockyMarciano said:
No, what I am asking is where did you get the notion that only seven dimensions are required? required by whom?

Required in order to get the Standard Model gauge group by KK reduction.
 
  • #39
What on Earth has the Kaluza-Klein dimensional reduction to do with anything in this thread is something I would like to know.
 
  • #40
It's a way to get gauge groups from bundles. Perhaps "principal bundle" is the wrong choice of words. But the point is, if the isometry group is ##G##, then you have vector fields available that generate ##G##. Call those vector fields ##X_i##. Now you can easily define some connection one-forms

$$A_\mu \equiv A_\mu^i \, X_i$$
on the base manifold. So, a small displacement in the base results in some action on the fiber by isometries.
 
  • #41
Ben Niehoff said:
It's a way to get gauge groups from bundles.
Looks somewhat disconnected from the theme we were discussing and glossing over my posts #32 and #33, so I take you don't disagree with what's stated there.
 
  • #42
Most of this thread is pretty disconnected from whatever you originally seemed to be asking about. You still haven't explained clearly.
 
  • #43
Ben Niehoff said:
Most of this thread is pretty disconnected from whatever you originally seemed to be asking about.
That is mostly true, basically because when I asked I wasn't fully aware of the possible answer(that's why I asked), and admittedly it is hard from my original question to get to the answer, so I understand to a great extent the puzzlement in this thread.

So actually my question was about a difference I perceived about Yang-Mills connections and their curvatures and connections and curvatures in the usual mathematical setting of Riemannian geometry. Now I understand that the difference I perceived came from the physics of Yang-Mills fields specified by something called Gribov ambiguities that acts locally. I know this issue is basically ignored nowadays and in general is not considered of much importance when assuming the principle of global gauge redundancy so the local/global distinction is not stressed much either, certainly not in the usual QFT textbooks.

Mathematically the idea is that Yang-Mills fields must have the same information about the bundle as any local trivialization of the bundle, but in the physical non-abelian case with local gauge fixing, due to the absence of global section(that leads to the nontrivial bundle you spoke about at the beginning of the thread) there is a topological obstruction to this that gives rise to the Gribov ambiguity, but this isn't supposed to affect the global trivial bundle gauge groups, as recovering in the end the gauge redundancy is basic for the consistence of the theory, so somehow it must be still true that the Yang-Mills fields must have the same information about the bundle as the local trivialization..

You still haven't explained clearly.
Point to anything(or the whole thing) you see as unclear or wrong in this post, that'd be helpful.
 
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  • #44
RockyMarciano said:
Point to anything(or the whole thing) you see as unclear or wrong in this post, that'd be helpful.

Your entire post is unclear, basically. Pretty much all of them. Your writing is full of run-on sentences which seem grammatically incomplete and can't seem to make a definite point. I agree with the suggestion that you should provide a concrete example of what you think the problem is.
 
  • #45
Ben Niehoff said:
Your entire post is unclear, basically. Pretty much all of them. Your writing is full of run-on sentences which seem grammatically incomplete and can't seem to make a definite point. I agree with the suggestion that you should provide a concrete example of what you think the problem is.
Thanks for the feed-back. So I'll try simple questions: Do you know what a Gribov ambiguity is? Do you agree with samalkhaiat that local gauge groups are infinite-dimensional? Do you agree that the global gauge bundle is trivial?
 
  • #46
RockyMarciano said:
Thanks for the feed-back. So I'll try simple questions: Do you know what a Gribov ambiguity is? Do you agree with samalkhaiat that local gauge groups are infinite-dimensional? Do you agree that the global gauge bundle is trivial?

I have some idea what a Gribov ambiguity is. Samalkhaiat has not participated in this thread. I'm not sure "local" and "global" mean what you think they mean. Also, you've posted this thread under "Differential Geometry", so I am not sure why you are surprised to get answers in terms of differential geometry rather than quantum field theory.
 
  • #47
Ben Niehoff said:
I have some idea what a Gribov ambiguity is.
Great, then you know the answer to my original question.

Samalkhaiat has not participated in this thread.
I gave a link in #32, surely you can read it, referencing information from outside a thread is routinely done.
I'm not sure "local" and "global" mean what you think they mean.
I give them the meaning of local as used in the usual "local gauge" concept, and global as in the usual global symmetry.

Also, you've posted this thread under "Differential Geometry", so I am not sure why you are surprised to get answers in terms of differential geometry rather than quantum field theory.
I'm not surprised by that, I'm a bit surprised by your passive-agresive attitude in this thread,but just because I don't know why any sane person would do that in a science forum, I'm that naive. Why would you come back to the thread out of the blue with some totally unrelated stringy comment that according to your strict view is not differential geometry proper? Usually people give answers in these foums to offer help(like Lavinia for example), otherwise they don't participate.
 
  • #48
RockyMarciano said:
I'm not surprised by that, I'm a bit surprised by your passive-agresive attitude in this thread,but just because I don't know why any sane person would do that in a science forum, I'm that naive. Why would you come back to the thread out of the blue with some totally unrelated stringy comment that according to your strict view is not differential geometry proper? Usually people give answers in these foums to offer help(like Lavinia for example), otherwise they don't participate.

You have been quite rude to those offering you help in this thread, both by your attitude and by your refusal to explain what you are trying to ask about.
 
  • #49
Certainly you haven't been offering help in the last part of the thread. I have not been rude at all with the other two people that did offer help in this thread, I value highly their help.
 
  • #50
Ben Niehoff said:
your refusal to explain what you are trying to ask about.
I've explained it several times, the last one your answer was that you didn't understand my english, curiously in my last post you didn't have that complain about my grammar and the point I was making.
 
  • #51
For me it is very difficult, actually impossible, to understand what you mean. And I think the problem is that you are vague and use terminology in a non-standard way. The problem is not your English, the mathematics is. Perhaps some of the notions you use are not clear to you. For example you keep saying that the global bundle is trivial. But that is confusing because globally the interesting bundles are not trivial. May be you mean that there are no global symmetries. When every sentence is like that it is frustrating to read. On the other hand these seem like interesting topics, so I can not stop myself reading.
 
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  • #52
martinbn said:
For me it is very difficult, actually impossible, to understand what you mean. And I think the problem is that you are vague and use terminology in a non-standard way. The problem is not your English, the mathematics is. Perhaps some of the notions you use are not clear to you.
I empathize with what you are saying. I can assure I try, and that I'll keep trying, but I'm neither a mathematician nor a professional physicist, just a layman trying to learn, like most around here.
For example you keep saying that the global bundle is trivial. But that is confusing because globally the interesting bundles are not trivial.
Ok. this one is easy to clarify. The bundle I am referring as trivial is the principal bundle with the Minkowski space as base manifold and the compact (finite dimensional global) groups U(1), SU(2) and SU(3) as fibers (also called internal symmetries). This principal bundle is trivial among other thing because the Coleman-Mandula prevents in general any other relation between the fiber G and the base space other than the direct topological product, and that is what defines a trivial bundle. Also triviality here is demanded by the required gauge redundancy of degrees of fredom that must be recovered, in other words arbitrary rotations at each spacetime point must not affect the physics, and that's what the triviality of the bundle in this case assures.

You can also read about this bundle defined as trivial in the post #13 of the thread I linked: specifically and I quote " the trivial principal bundle [itex]\pi (G,M)[/itex]" with M being the spacetime and G the compact global group, as explained there.

Some confusion might have arisen from the local gauge bundle related to nonabelian connections which is nontrivial, but this is a different bundle, its base space is not Mikowski spacetime, and its fibers are the infinite dimensional local gauge groups that are also mentioned in the same post #13 that I quote above and it is the infinite dimension bundle mentioned in the notes by David Skinner that I referenced in #27, in the pages 21-22 as the space of local connections A.

If you have any further doubt about this point or any other of those you found hard to understand please don't hesitate to comment it too and I'll do my best to clarify.

On the other hand these seem like interesting topics, so I can not stop myself reading.
Same here, that's why I keep reading and asking questions in this site.

Thanks for your understanding tone.
 
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  • #53
The only things you referenced in #32 are Wikipedia articles. Where are the notes by David Skinner?
 
  • #54
Ben Niehoff said:
The only things you referenced in #32 are Wikipedia articles. Where are the notes by David Skinner?
There is also a pointer to the thread I was commenting. The link to the notes was in #27.

Please ignore my out of line comment in #47.
 
<h2>1. What is the definition of curvature forms?</h2><p>Curvature forms are mathematical objects that describe the curvature of a manifold, which is a geometric space that can be curved. They are used in differential geometry to study the curvature of connections on manifolds.</p><h2>2. How are curvature forms related to Riemannian curvatures?</h2><p>Curvature forms are closely related to Riemannian curvatures, which are measures of the curvature of a Riemannian manifold. In fact, the Riemannian curvature tensor can be expressed in terms of curvature forms, making them an important tool for studying Riemannian geometry.</p><h2>3. What is the significance of connections in relation to curvature forms?</h2><p>Connections are mathematical objects that describe how tangent spaces of a manifold are connected to each other. They are closely related to curvature forms, as the curvature of a connection can be expressed in terms of curvature forms. Connections are crucial in understanding the curvature of a manifold.</p><h2>4. How are curvature forms used in physics?</h2><p>Curvature forms have many applications in physics, particularly in the field of general relativity. They are used to describe the curvature of spacetime, which is a fundamental concept in general relativity. Curvature forms also play a role in other areas of physics, such as in gauge theories.</p><h2>5. Can curvature forms be used to study the curvature of non-Riemannian manifolds?</h2><p>While curvature forms are most commonly used in the study of Riemannian manifolds, they can also be used to study the curvature of non-Riemannian manifolds. In this case, the Riemannian curvature tensor is replaced by a more general curvature tensor, and the curvature forms are defined accordingly. This allows for the study of curvature on a wider range of geometric spaces.</p>

1. What is the definition of curvature forms?

Curvature forms are mathematical objects that describe the curvature of a manifold, which is a geometric space that can be curved. They are used in differential geometry to study the curvature of connections on manifolds.

2. How are curvature forms related to Riemannian curvatures?

Curvature forms are closely related to Riemannian curvatures, which are measures of the curvature of a Riemannian manifold. In fact, the Riemannian curvature tensor can be expressed in terms of curvature forms, making them an important tool for studying Riemannian geometry.

3. What is the significance of connections in relation to curvature forms?

Connections are mathematical objects that describe how tangent spaces of a manifold are connected to each other. They are closely related to curvature forms, as the curvature of a connection can be expressed in terms of curvature forms. Connections are crucial in understanding the curvature of a manifold.

4. How are curvature forms used in physics?

Curvature forms have many applications in physics, particularly in the field of general relativity. They are used to describe the curvature of spacetime, which is a fundamental concept in general relativity. Curvature forms also play a role in other areas of physics, such as in gauge theories.

5. Can curvature forms be used to study the curvature of non-Riemannian manifolds?

While curvature forms are most commonly used in the study of Riemannian manifolds, they can also be used to study the curvature of non-Riemannian manifolds. In this case, the Riemannian curvature tensor is replaced by a more general curvature tensor, and the curvature forms are defined accordingly. This allows for the study of curvature on a wider range of geometric spaces.

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