A vierbein is a local orthonormal coframe, consisting of four linearly independent covectors such that
Here label spacetime coordinates, while label a Lorentz frame with . Its inverse obeys and . The vierbein converts tensor indices between the coordinate and orthonormal descriptions.
The metric is unchanged under an arbitrary local Lorentz transformation , since . This is local frame redundancy, with corresponding transformations of fields and connections; it is distinct from coordinate diffeomorphism covariance. A generic curved spacetime does not have global Lorentz isometries. Rather, local tangent frames have Lorentz freedom, and the field equations can be written covariantly under their changes. On flat spacetime, global Lorentz transformations are also spacetime isometries.
A spinor field is a section of the spinor bundle associated to a spin structure. Local components transform in a Spinor representation of the Lorentz group, more precisely a representation of its spin double cover. For the proper orthochronous group in four dimensions, that cover is . Thus a spinor field transforms as under frame changes, rather than as a coordinate-index tensor. The double-valued lift of a frame rotation requires a consistent spin structure globally; local spinor calculations alone do not choose that global structure. One can use a Dirac spinor for the gamma-matrix calculation below.
Write for the Lorentz-frame spin connection. Expanding the tetrad postulate gives
Multiply by the inverse vierbein to solve for the connection:
With the torsion-free Levi-Civita connection, metric compatibility makes antisymmetric in . For constant flat gamma matrices obeying , define . The spinor covariant derivative is
Under a local Lorentz transformation, the matrix connection acquires the inhomogeneous term needed to make transform as a spinor. The derivative of the vierbein in the boxed formula is therefore essential.
For the conformally flat metric, choose and . Let and raise these coordinate indices temporarily with the flat metric . Directly evaluating the Christoffel symbols gives
Since , the connection formula yields
This is the spin connection of a conformally flat metric in the specified conformal frame. It is frame dependent, unlike an invariant curvature tensor.
Set . Antisymmetry of makes its action on spinors
For with , we have . The Clifford algebra gives , so
The curved gamma matrices are and . Consequently
Thus the rescaled field is a twistor spinor. Multiplying this last equation by , symmetrizing in and using proves
This is the conformal rescaling of a parallel spinor to a twistor spinor. It does not claim that the rescaled spinor remains parallel in the conformal metric; the nonzero connection and the derivative of combine precisely into its gamma-trace part.