Variation of the inverse metric relation gives . Hence the metric variation of scalar curvature is
Put . The connection variation gives the contractions
Using metric compatibility and the Palatini identity,
Renaming dummy indices gives
No interchange of covariant derivatives on a tensor is needed in this derivation, so no hidden curvature-commutator term is discarded.
Use spatial indices , set , and assume is smooth. The inverse metric has and . The Christoffel symbols of the Levi-Civita connection follow from :
All other components vanish. Although diverges, its affine connection has a smooth limit on compact subsets:
This is the Newtonian connection from an exponential lapse. It is torsion-free, and its geodesic equation, using as an affine parameter when , is . Thus has the role of a Newtonian gravitational potential. There is no finite limiting nondegenerate Lorentzian metric in these fixed coordinates; tends to , a rank-one tensor. The limiting connection preserves and the contravariant spatial tensor with components , , which describe the degenerate temporal/spatial structures of this limit.
The Euler-Lagrange equations for the kinetic Lagrangian are
Expanding and multiplying by the inverse metric gives the geodesic equation
The kinetic variational principle uses an affine parameter; the energy is constant along its solutions. Constant curves are also geodesics.
For the Poincare half-plane model, translation in gives the conserved quantity , and the energy is . If , the nonconstant geodesics are vertical lines, with . If ,
Writing and integrating yields . Thus nonconstant geodesic images are vertical lines or upper semicircles meeting the real axis orthogonally.
For the two specified points, the circle centre is and the radius is five:
For example, an affine unit-speed parametrization is , . The endpoints on the real axis are and , outside the hyperbolic surface.
Figure 1.
The upper-half-plane geodesic through the two specified points
.
For coordinates , the Christoffel symbols of the Levi-Civita connection are
where is the inverse metric.
For the two-dimensional hyperbolic metric in polar coordinates,
Only has a nonzero derivative, namely
It follows that the nonzero connection coefficients are
Contracting the Riemann curvature tensor gives the nonzero components of the Ricci tensor:
The Ricci scalar is the contraction with the inverse metric. Therefore
It is independent of both coordinates, so the hyperbolic plane has constant negative scalar curvature.
Write and . Varying with fixed endpoints and then choosing proper time as parameter, for which , gives the Euler-Lagrange equation
Expanding the derivative, raising the free index with the inverse metric, and using the symmetry of gives the geodesic equation
These are the Christoffel symbols of the Levi-Civita connection.
The inverse metric condition is
Keeping only terms linear in the metric perturbation gives
Thus the linearized inverse metric is
where indices on are raised with the Minkowski metric.