Curvature-sign convention in Killing derivative identities

ID: curvature-sign-convention-in-killing-derivative-identities

Let , with all other index positions obtained by the metric tensor. This convention is the negative of the convention . The Ricci identity is , with . For a Killing vector, the Killing equation makes this second derivative antisymmetric in . Applying the commutator three times gives , where the last step uses the first Bianchi identity. Switching the sign of the Riemann curvature tensor switches the sign in this identity; moving a raised index by ordinary metric contraction does not switch it.

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