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Physics
Special and General Relativity
More on Parallel Transport: Existence & Uniqueness
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[QUOTE="pervect, post: 5748595, member: 14402"] The recent thread on parallel transport has raised a couple of things I'd like to review for my own sake. I'll address them one at a time as my time permits. The first question is this. If we offer ##t^a \nabla_a u^b## or the equivalent ##\nabla_{\vec{t}} u^b## as the definition of parallel transport of a vector ##\vec{u}## along some curve C with tangent ##\vec{t}##, how do we show the existence and uniqueness of parallel transport? To be a bit more clear, we have some curve C with a tangent ##t^a##, and we are assuming that some derivative operator ##\tilde{\nabla}_a## exists and is well-defined. At this point we aren't making any more specific assumptions about ##\tilde{\nabla}_a##, in fact if we follow Wald's logic we are assuming that there are many possible ways to define a derivative operator that meet the necessary axioms, and we are free to pick any of them. Eventually, we'll realize that these other derivative operators yield other connections, and that for the purposes of doing GR the connection we are interested in is the Levi-Civita connection. But at this point we are only assuming that we've singled out one specific possibility for the derivative operator, and we want to show that this implies we've also singled out some specific notion of parallel transport. Given then, that we have a well-defined derivative operator, if we have a curve, and we have a vector on the curve, how do we go about showing that this definition yields a unique answer to the question of parallel transporting said vector along said curve? I think in the recent thread, there were some concerns about the existence and uniqueness of this concept of parallel transport. Having a definition, if it's a good one, should address these concerns. [/QUOTE]
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