Question 17 in section 2.9 in Schutz's A First Course in GR

  • Thread starter Thread starter MathematicalPhysicist
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Course Gr Section
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
1 reply · 1K views
Messages
4,662
Reaction score
372
The question is as follows:

Prove that any timelike vector for which ##U^0>0## and ##\vec{U}\cdot \vec{U} = -1## is the 4-velocity of some world line.

I need to show that there exists a 4-vector ##\vec{x}##, s.t ##\frac{d\vec{x}}{d\tau} = \vec{U}##, where ##\vec{x}## is a world line of some particle.

So far what I have done is: since ##\vec{U}\cdot \frac{d\vec{U}}{d\tau} = 0##, so we have:

$$dU^0/d\tau = U^1/U^0 dU^1/d\tau + U^2/U^0dU^2/d\tau + U^3/U^0 dU^3/d\tau$$

I used the fact that ##U^0>0##, so I can divide by it above.

We also have: ##dx^\mu/d\tau = U^\mu ##. How to continue? Any ideas?

This is not for homework, I am self studying GR and QFT.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
MathematicalPhysicist said:
This is not for homework, I am self studying GR and QFT.

Even if it's not technically homework for you, it's a problem that is often assigned as homework, so I have moved this thread to the homework forum.