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The Lie bracket of vector fields is the commutator of the corresponding derivations:For $X=X^i{\partial }_i$ and $Y=Y^i{\partial }_i$,

For a Matrix Lie group, the right-invariant vector field is $r_{\xi }(g)=\xi g$. Differentiating these ambient matrix-valued functions in the definition of the Lie bracket of vector fields gives $[r_{\xi },r_{\eta }](g)=(\eta \xi -\xi \eta )g$. Thus $\xi \mapsto r_{\xi }$ is an antihomomorphism, and $\xi \mapsto -r_{\xi }$ is a homomorphism. In contrast, $\xi \mapsto l_{\xi }$ for left-invariant vector fields is a homomorphism.

The second fundamental form of an embedded submanifold of a Riemannian manifold is symmetric. Its ambient Levi-Civita connection is a torsion-free connection, soThe Lie bracket of vector fields tangent to the submanifold is tangent and therefore has zero normal component. This proof applies to a curved ambient manifold as well as Euclidean space.

If $X$ and $Y$ preserve $I(N)$, then their commutator preserves it becausefor every $f\in I(N)$. Thus vector fields tangent to an embedded submanifold are closed under the Lie bracket of vector fields, and the restricted bracket depends only on their restrictions to the submanifold.

The torsion of an affine connection is the displayed antisymmetric tensor. It measures the failure of the antisymmetrized covariant derivative to agree with the Lie bracket of vector fields. With derivative-last coefficients ${\nabla }_{\mu }{Y}^{\rho }={\partial }_{\mu }{Y}^{\rho }+{\Gamma }^{\rho }{}_{\nu \mu }{Y}^{\nu }$, its components are ${\mathcal{T}}^{\rho }{}_{\mu \nu }={\Gamma }^{\rho }{}_{\nu \mu }-{\Gamma }^{\rho }{}_{\mu \nu }$. Some conventions use the negative component tensor. Geodesic equations depend on the symmetric connection coefficients, so they alone cannot detect torsion.