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Parallel transportation of a vector along a closed triangle
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[QUOTE="Manu_, post: 5470368, member: 593625"] Hello everyone, I am trying to solve exercise 7.21 in the "Hobson, Efstathiou, Lasenby, General Relativity. An introduction for physicists." What is asked is to show that the parallel transportation of a vector, along a closed triangle on a 2-sphere, results in an vector orthogonal to the initial one. The triangle has 3 right angles: [ATTACH=full]187662[/ATTACH] [B][/B] Here is what I tried so far: I have started with [tex] \Delta v^{a} = -\frac{1}{2} R^{a}{}_{bcd} v^{b}_{P} \oint \! x^{c} \, d x^{d} [/tex] where [tex] \Delta v^{a} = v^{a}-v^{a}_{P} [/tex] is the change underwent by the vector (the initial one being evaluated at point P), and [tex] R^{a}{}_{bcd} [/tex] is the Riemann tensor. The metric being [tex] ds^{2} = a^{2} \left( d \theta^{2} +\sin^{2}{\theta} d\phi^{2} \right) [/tex] the only independant component of the Riemann tensor is [tex] R^{\theta}{}_{\phi \theta \phi} = -R^{\theta}{}_{\phi \phi \theta} = -R^{\phi}{}_{ \theta \theta \phi} = R^{\phi}{}_{ \theta \phi \theta} = \sin^{2}{\theta}[/tex] I then find: [tex] \begin{split} \Delta v^{\theta} &= -\frac{1}{2} R^{\theta}{}_{\phi \theta \phi} v^{\phi}_{P} \oint \! \theta \, d \phi -\frac{1}{2} R^{\theta}{}_{\phi \phi \theta} v^{\phi}_{P} \oint \! \phi \, d \theta \\ &= -\frac{1}{2} R^{\theta}{}_{\phi \theta \phi} v^{\phi}_{P} \left( \oint \! \theta \, d \phi - \oint \! \phi \, d \theta \right) \\ \end{split} [/tex] And the closed path integrals are (A is the pole, B is the left vertex and B the right one): [tex] \oint \! \theta \, d \phi = \int_{A}^{B} \theta \, d\phi + \int_{B}^{C} \theta \, d\phi + \int_{C}^{A} \theta \, d\phi [/tex] I then say that [itex]\phi[/itex] does not vary from B to C, since we stay on the equator, so: [tex] \oint \! \theta \, d \phi = \int_{A}^{B} \theta \, d\phi + \int_{C}^{A} \theta \, d\phi = \theta \left( -\frac{\pi}{2} +\frac{\pi}{2} \right) =0[/tex] And the other closed integral gives: [tex] \begin{split} \oint \phi \! \, d \theta &= \int_{A}^{B} \phi \, d \theta + \int_{B}^{C} \phi \, d \theta + \int_{C}^{A} \phi \, d \theta \\ &= \int_{B}^{C} \phi \, d \theta \\ &= \phi \times \frac{\pi}{2} \end{split} [/tex] In the end, I obtain: [tex] \Delta v^{\theta} = \frac{\pi}{4} \phi v^{\phi}_{P} \sin^{2}{\theta} [/tex] And by similar calculations, I get: [tex] \Delta v^{\phi} = \frac{\pi}{4} \phi v^{\theta}_{P} \sin^{2}{\theta} [/tex] And from this, I was tempted to use the scalar product between the new vector (denoted with a prime) and the old one to see if they cancel: [tex] \begin{split} v'^{a}v_{a} &= v'^{\theta}v_{\theta} + v'^{\phi}v_{\phi} \\ &= \left( v^{\theta}+\frac{\pi}{4} \phi v^{\phi}\sin^{2}{\theta} \right) v_{\theta} + \left( v^{\phi}+\frac{\pi}{4} \phi v^{\theta} \sin^{2}{\theta} \right) v_{\phi} \\ &= v^{\theta}v_{\theta} + v^{\phi}v_{\phi} + +\frac{\pi}{4} \phi \sin^{2}{\theta} \left(v^{\phi}v_{\theta} + v^{\theta}v_{\phi} \right) \end{split} [/tex] which don't seem to cancel at all. Could anyone possibly point out my mistake(s)? Thank you! Manu [/QUOTE]
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Parallel transportation of a vector along a closed triangle
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