Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/iii/paper-115/4/c/solution

The product Riemannian metric is
It is smooth and symmetric. If , at least one component is nonzero and contributes a strictly positive squared norm; the other contributes a nonnegative term. Thus is positive definite.
Let the factor connections be Levi-Civita connections. The torsion form of the product affine connection vanishes on two lifted fields from one factor because it equals the factor torsion; on opposite-factor fields it vanishes because both covariant derivatives and the Lie bracket of vector fields vanish. By tensoriality, torsion vanishes for all fields.
Check metric compatibility on lifted fields as well. When the two paired fields are from one factor, their metric pairing depends only on that factor. Differentiation along that factor gives the usual factor compatibility identity, and differentiation along the other factor gives zero on both sides. When the paired fields are from different factors, their pairing is identically zero and their derivatives stay in their original summands, so both sides are again zero. Since has tensoriality, these checks imply globally.
The existence and uniqueness of the Levi-Civita connection therefore gives
Equivalently, applying the Christoffel symbol formula to the block metric gives the factor coefficients and zero mixed coefficients, because each factor metric is independent of the other coordinates.

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