Coordinate horizontal lifts of a principal connection

ID: coordinate-horizontal-lifts-of-a-principal-connection

On a coordinate trivialization of a principal bundle, the right-invariant vector fields satisfy . With , the displayed lifts project to the commuting coordinate fields and contract to zero with the principal connection. Taking their Lie brackets gives the local curvature of a principal connection coefficients . Thus these lifts commute exactly when the connection is flat. Arbitrary base fields need not commute, and flatness alone does not supply a global coordinate frame or remove holonomy of a connection.

New to topics? Read the docs here!