Geometry on Metric Manifolds

The

metric

is an important tensorial object that introduces more structure into a (differential) manifold. The metric coefficients allow for example to determine the length of parameter curves in the manifold and make it possible to relate corresponding co- and contravariant objects defined on the manifold. Thus the

inner product

of either co- or contravariant quantities and in particular the angle between two vectors or (covectors) may be computed. Adopting the Ricci postulate of vanishing covariant derivative of the metric coefficients results in a decomposition of the fully covariant connection into its Riemann part, that depends exclusively on the metric, and the contortion, that depends exclusively on the torsion. Moreover, in this case the length of vectors and their angle with respect to geodesics are preserved upon parallel transport. Based on the metric coefficients the fully covariant curvature tensor, displaying left and right skew symmetry, is introduced and the corresponding modifications of the Bianchi identities are highlighted. Likewise the metric allows to introduce the mixed-variant Ricci tensor together with corresponding identities. Finally the metric enables to compute the Ricci scalar from the previous curvature tensors. The particular case of a symmetric, metrically connected manifold represents a Riemann geometry with associated Riemann curvature tensor as fundamental for example in the Einstein Theory of General Relativity/Gravitation. A generalization is obtained by allowing for metric manifolds with non-vanishing covariant derivative of its metric coefficients. The presence of the non-metricity is then subsequently reflected by extra terms in the decomposition of the connection and in the explicit representation of the curvature tensor, the Ricci tensor, the Ricci scalar, and the corresponding Bianchi identities for the various curvature quantities.