Parallel Propagation

Notes for GR-I and GR-II - CCD

Propagation Along Geodesics

va

ua
Figure 1: Consider a geodesic curve, say , with ane parameter , given as the four functions x (). Taking ua = dxa /d to be the components of the tangent vector to , the geodesic equation can be written in the form:
a

dua a b c + bc uu =0 d It is useful to re-write this in the form:

c dua b dx + a u =0 bc d d

(1)

(2)

from which we can see that the vector ua changes by the amount
b c dua = a bc u dx

(3)

This is sometimes described as the dragging of the tangent vector along the geodesic. A geodesic in a curved space is the analog of the straight line in at spaces, so that the dragging of the tangent vector to a geodesic along that geodesic is the basis for dening parallelism in a non-at space-time.

c Charles C. Dyer

Now that we understand the parallel dragging, or the parallel transport of the tangent vector to a geodesic, we can use this to understand how to parallel transport any other vector along a geodesic. Suppose that v a is some other vector which we wish to transport along the geodesic to which ua is the tangent vector. This transport of v a must satisfy the conditions: ua va must remain constant along , thus preserving the angle between ua and v a . v a va must remain xed along . v a is arbitrary, and the transport is linear, meaning that the change, || v a , in v a must be proportional to v a itself, and also proportional to the distance dragged. The linearity requirement can be written in the form:
b || va = Hac vb dxc

(4)

b is to be determined, and we have purposely chosen to express it in terms of the where Hac covariant component representation of v a . We can now consider the eect of dragging the scalar ua va along the geodesic as:

|| (ua va ) = = = =

ua || va + va || ua b b c ua Hac vb dxc va a bc u dx a b c ub Hbc va dxc va a bc u dx a b c (Hbc a bc ) u va dx

where we have used the result that || ua is just dua for the tangent vector. The invariance a of the angle between v a and ua along the geodesic thus requires that Hbc is just a bc . Thus a the parallel transport of the vector va along a geodesic, , with tangent vector u satises the equation: c (5) dva = b ac vb dx It is important to remember that in this expression, the dxc are the coordinate dierentials along the geodesic, . Thus a better way of writing the result is: dva c = b ac vb u d (6)

so that the r ole of the geodesic and its tangent vector ua is obvious. It is convenient to write the parallel transport equation for va in a form involving covariant derivative notation. We begin by noting that va dxc dva = = va|c uc d xc d Noting that the covariant derivative of va is given by va||c = va|c b ac vb it is straightforward to obtain va||c uc = 0 2 (9) (8) (7)

as the condition for the parallel transport of the vector va along the geodesic whose tangent vector is ua . Since the index c in this equation is a tensor index (because it arose from a covariant derivative), we can raise the index to obtain the corresponding result for the contravariant form of v a : v a||c uc = 0 (10) It is now easy to see that the condition for the parallel transport of v a in its contravariant form is: b c dv a = a (11) bc v dx and with this result, it is straightforward to show that v a va is invariant along the geodesic as well. Another way to see this result is to consider the derivative along : d(v a va ) = (v a va )|b ub = (v a va )||b ub = v a||b ub va + v a va||b ub = 2v a va||b ub d (12)

where we have used the freedom to raise and lower the indices within the derivatives, since they are based on covariant dierentiations. Noting that the parallel transport of va along the geodesic requires that va||b ub = 0, it is then clear that v a va is invariant along the geodesic if v a is parallel transported along .

Propagation Along Non-Geodesic Curves

Until now, we have required the curve along which the parallel transport was taking place to be a geodesic, . In fact what we have really done is considered the dragging of a vector eld v a an innitesimal displacement along a direction specied by the vector ua . This vector ua can point in any direction, but since through every (non-singular) point, there passes a geodesic in every direction, as one can see from the geodesic equation, our construction is much more general than it rst appears. We can then use this as a general denition of the parallel transport of one vector eld along another vector eld. This allows us to introduce the notion of a general parallel propagator for a vector eld along a general curve, in the form: c Dv a dxb dv a b dx 0= = v a||b = + a v (13) bc D d d d with the corresponding form for a covariant vector. The process of parallel propagation can be considered along an arbitrary curve because at each point along the curve, there is a geodesic which passes through the point with its tangent vector colinear with the tangent vector to the non-geodesic curve, thus allowing one to dene parallelism in the neighbourhood. One consequence is that for a general curve, the tangent vector to that curve is not parallel transported along the curve itself this property is reserved for the geodesics of the manifold. We can now discuss the parallel propagation of contravariant or covariant components of a vector from one point, xc , in the manifold to a nearby point, xc + dxc . The corresponding changes in the components are then:
b c dua = a bc u dx

(14)

and
c dua = b ac ub dx

(15)