The product Riemannian metric of the round unit two-sphere and a circle has Ricci curvature equal to on the sphere directions and zero on the circle direction. Its scalar curvature is constantly two, but no single scalar multiple of the whole metric equals that Ricci tensor. In two dimensions the identity does make constant scalar curvature equivalent to an Einstein metric.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 14 5 Solution 2026-10-14
A Riemannian metric is a smooth positive-definite symmetric inner product on every tangent space. A Levi-Civita connection is a connection on the tangent bundle which is torsion-free, , and metric-compatible,Apply this identity with the cyclic triples , and , add the first two and subtract the third, and replace differences of covariant derivatives by Lie brackets. The result is the Koszul formulaIts right side depends only on and the vector fields; nondegeneracy of determines uniquely. This proves uniqueness.
For existence, in a coordinate chart defineThis is linear over smooth functions in and obeys the Leibniz rule in . Symmetry proves zero torsion, and direct substitution giveswhich proves metric compatibility. On chart overlaps the two resulting connections satisfy the same intrinsic Koszul identity and therefore agree by uniqueness. They glue globally. Thus the existence and uniqueness of the Levi-Civita connection holds on every Riemannian manifold.
Fix the curvature conventionFor coordinate vectors , define the Riemann curvature tensor components by . In these indices the Ricci and scalar contractions areExplicitly, , whereThese expressions define Ricci curvature and scalar curvature without ambiguity about which indices are contracted. With this convention a round unit -sphere has and .
If with a constant real , tracing gives , so every Einstein metric has constant scalar curvature. The converse is not valid in arbitrary dimension. On with the product Riemannian metric of the unit round sphere and a circle, the connection splits between factors. The mixed curvatures and circle curvature vanish, while the sphere has curvature one. HenceA scalar multiple of the whole metric would require on the sphere directions and on the circle direction, which is impossible. This proves that constant scalar curvature does not imply an Einstein metric, and supplies a counterexample to the unrestricted requested equivalence.
In dimension two, the curvature tensor is determined by the Gaussian curvature :There the valid equivalence isIn dimension one both curvature and scalar curvature vanish identically. Without a two-dimensional restriction or another added geometric hypothesis, the general converse cannot be proved.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 58 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For the Lie algebra of a Lie group , let . The Killing form is the symmetric bilinear formFor a finite-dimensional real Lie algebra, the Cartan criterion for semisimplicity says that is nondegenerate precisely when is a semisimple Lie algebra. Thus a semisimple Lie group supplies the required condition. Compactness alone is insufficient: an abelian Lie algebra, including that of a torus, has zero Killing form.
The Jacobi identity gives . Cyclic invariance of the trace therefore givesThere is also invariance under the full Adjoint representation of a Lie group: , so .
Define a pseudo-Riemannian metric by translating from the identity:It is smooth and nondegenerate. Left translations preserve it by construction. Right translation, expressed in left-translated tangent coordinates, acts by , so it also preserves the metric. This constructs a bi-invariant pseudo-Riemannian metric.
For left-invariant vector fields, the derivative terms in the Koszul formula vanish. Invariance of then givesUse the Riemann curvature tensor convention . Substituting the Levi-Civita connection and using the Jacobi identity yieldsThe Ricci tensor is the trace of . Since , it follows thatThis is the Killing-form Einstein metric. Rescaling to , with nonzero constant , gives Einstein metric constant .
For a compact semisimple Lie group, is negative definite and is a positive-definite bi-invariant Riemannian metric. For example, has topology and metric signature for , while has the same Lie algebra and metric signature, but topology . The special linear group has metric signature and topology ; its universal covering Lie group has topology and the same Killing form. The real Lie algebra of has metric signature , and the group has topology . Thus the Killing form distinguishes compact from noncompact directions in these semisimple examples, but does not determine global topology or distinguish different covering groups.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 64 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A principal bundle with structure group has a smooth free right -action, each fibre is a single orbit, and it is locally equivariantly isomorphic to . A representation defines the associated vector bundleLocal sections of identify with , and changes of section act by on the fibre coordinates.
A principal bundle is trivial if and only if it has a global smooth section. Given , the map is an equivariant isomorphism : freeness and transitivity give its unique inverse on each fibre, and local trivializations make that inverse smooth. Conversely a product bundle has section . This proves principal bundle trivialization by a global section. A contractible paracompact base is a sufficient condition for triviality of such a bundle; local sections alone are insufficient on a general base.
A manifold is parallelizable when its tangent bundle is trivial, equivalently when it possesses a global smooth frame. The circle is an example, with its nowhere-vanishing unit tangent field. The sphere is another: regard it as the unit quaternions. At a unit quaternion , the three tangent vectors are independent and smoothly depend on . Quaternion multiplication preserves the norm, so these form an orthonormal frame. This gives the quaternionic left-invariant frame on the three-sphere.
For any Lie group of dimension , choose a basis of . Left translations defineThese fields are smooth; at every , the differential of the diffeomorphism is invertible, so they are a basis of . Hence every Lie group manifold is parallelizable, as in parallelization of a Lie group by left translations.
For a real semisimple Lie group, let be the Killing form. It is nondegenerate and invariant under the adjoint action. Left translating gives a bi-invariant pseudo-Riemannian metric. For left-invariant fields, the Koszul formula reduces toThus . The curvature convention of Question 1 givesTo obtain the Ricci tensor, trace the linear map . Since ,This proves the Killing-form Einstein metric construction for every real semisimple group. If is compact semisimple, is positive definite and its Ricci tensor is , giving a Riemannian Einstein metric. For a noncompact semisimple group the general Killing-form construction is indefinite. Thus the unrestricted assertion is understood in the pseudo-Riemannian sense appropriate here; positive definiteness is not obtained by simply taking in the noncompact case.