Conformal boundary 2026-10-14
A boundary obtained by extending the rescaled metric smoothly and nondegenerately to a hypersurface on which vanishes with nonzero derivative. Its causal character is measured using the extended Lorentzian metric, not the divergent physical metric. In signature , a timelike normal makes the boundary spacelike, a spacelike normal makes it timelike, and a null normal makes it null. These cases lead to different causal and initial-value properties. The conformal cylinder of two-dimensional de Sitter spacetime has spacelike past/future boundaries; the conformal strip of two-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime has two timelike boundaries.
Eisenhart-Duval lift 2026-10-06
A mechanical Lagrangian quadratic in velocities can be represented by geodesics of a Lorentzian metric with an extra null coordinate. For , use . The null Killing vector field gives the conserved momentum . Fixing projects the geodesic equation to the mechanical Euler-Lagrange equations. This is useful for relating mechanical forces to spacetime geometry.
Harmonic coordinate Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
A harmonic coordinate satisfies for a Riemannian metric, or for a Lorentzian metric. Equivalently or . This common coordinate condition applies in both Riemannian geometry and general relativity.
Metric volume tensor 2026-10-06
On an oriented -dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold, the metric volume tensor is the totally antisymmetric tensor with in positively oriented coordinates. It supplies the components of the volume form. It differs from the coordinate Levi-Civita symbol, whose entries are just . Raising indices with a Lorentzian metric can change signs; the metric, dimension and orientation must be specified.
Null condition 2026-10-06
The null condition for a nonzero vector in a Lorentzian metric is . Applied to the tangent of a curve it makes the curve a null curve. Nullity alone does not imply the geodesic equation; an additional zero or tangent-parallel covariant acceleration is required.
Null pregeodesic 2026-10-06
A null pregeodesic has a null tangent and can be parametrized as a null geodesic. In a two-dimensional Lorentzian metric, the acceleration of a regular null curve is orthogonal to its tangent and therefore proportional to it.
The observer is static at , with four-velocity , where . Angles are measured in the observer's rest frame, using the positive spatial metric tensor
on the equatorial plane. One cannot directly normalize a photon tangent with the full Lorentzian metric to define an angle, because that tangent is null.
At the observer the spatial direction of an outward-moving grazing ray is proportional to , with . Its angle to the outward radial direction equals the corresponding sky angle to the inward center of the image. Taking the spatial inner product with ,
Consequently
The limiting value is understood by continuity.
For a grazing ray the areal radius has a turning point at the stellar surface , so there. The radial equation gives
Since , the surface lies outside the photon sphere. The function decreases for , so this tangential ray can escape to every and correctly defines the image's rim. For the specified surface,
Also , hence
Its sign depends on the orientation of the ray and of , and does not affect the angular diameter. Substitution gives
This apparent angular radius of a spherical star in Schwarzschild spacetime has useful limiting checks. As , the star occupies a hemisphere, . Far away, : Schwarzschild light deflection increases the apparent radius by a factor relative to the flat-space value .
Since the real conformal factor is nowhere zero, at every point. For any tangent vector,
The sign is unchanged. With metric signature , negative, zero and positive values therefore describe the same timelike vectors, null vectors and spacelike vectors for both metric tensors. In particular the two null cones coincide.
Choose the same time orientation for the two Lorentzian metrics. A future-directed causal curve or timelike curve for one has the same character for the other. Hence the causal future, causal past and chronological future of every point agree:
This is the preservation of causal structure by a smooth, nonvanishing conformal transformation. It does not assert preservation of proper time or of affine parameter lengths.
A nondegenerate Lorentzian metric requires ; take as the radius convention. The original coordinates describe , with a candidate boundary rather than an ordinary point of that chart. The change of coordinate gives
Substituting and cancelling the two terms proportional to produces
The block of this metric tensor has determinant and inverse metric
All coefficients are smooth through , and the block has one negative and one positive eigenvalue. Together with the positive round two-sphere factor this is a regular Lorentzian metric. It extends to a neighborhood with either sign of . The usual polar-coordinate problem at the poles of the two-sphere is removed by separate angular charts. Therefore is only a coordinate singularity of the original chart. This is the degenerate-horizon patch of Bertotti-Robinson spacetime.
Put , the standard metric tensor on the unit sphere. From one has . The apparently divergent terms cancel:
The metric tensor block has determinant , independently of . Its coefficients are real analytic, so this formula defines a regular Lorentzian metric on
The polar-coordinate degeneracies at the poles are handled by ordinary two-sphere charts. Thus is a coordinate singularity of the original chart and is crossed by this spacetime extension.
Write . The Jacobi formula gives . Since a Lorentzian metric of signature has negative determinant,
The variation of metric volume density therefore has the opposite sign when expressed using the inverse metric tensor: . This follows immediately from the variation of inverse metric and explains the volume term in the field-equation derivation.
Define the raw Killing form by
For a finite-dimensional real or complex Lie algebra in characteristic zero, it is nondegenerate exactly when the algebra is a semisimple Lie algebra. For a real compact semisimple algebra it is negative definite. Consequently the positive compact Killing metric is : for example on with , and gives a Riemannian metric on . An overall minus sign in the term “Killing metric” is common here; raw trace itself is negative definite in this example.
For a Lorentzian metric use with , , . Direct traces give
whose metric signature is . For a non-Abelian degenerate example, the three-dimensional Heisenberg Lie algebra has central. Every product of two adjoint maps is zero, so .
For any adjoint-invariant nondegenerate metric on a Lie group, the Koszul formula on left-invariant fields simplifies to
Take . The Jacobi identity gives
Taking the trace of yields
Thus the metric is a Killing-form Einstein metric with Einstein constant . With the same connection has constant . This proves the Einstein manifold assertion for every semisimple group, including products when the unscaled Killing form is used on all factors.
There is also a different, flat metric-preserving connection. Declare the global left-invariant frame parallel:
Its curvature is zero because applying two derivatives to coefficient functions and subtracting their commutator gives zero. Its metric derivative vanishes since is constant in this frame. Its torsion tensor on invariant fields is
For each fixed , antisymmetry gives , so this is the matrix of . The torsion contractions of a left-parallel Lie-group connection therefore are
The zero trace follows because a semisimple algebra is perfect: every element is a sum of brackets, and the adjoint of a bracket is a matrix commutator with zero trace. If the metric convention is , the second contraction is . These flat translation connections on a Lie group are not the torsion-free Levi-Civita connection; nonzero torsion permits flatness alongside the curved Killing metric.
Use ambient quadratic form . The printed sine coordinate has a duplicated superscript: it must be , not another . With that correction the embedding lies on . Put . Differentiating the two timelike coordinates gives
whereas the two spatial coordinates give . Their difference is the induced Lorentzian metric
The polar coordinate collapses at ; this is a coordinate degeneracy, not a degeneracy of the metric.
For the matrix model of anti-de Sitter three-space, define
Then . This linear identification of ambient space with real two-by-two matrices identifies with . Its inverse recovers each by sums and differences of matrix entries, so the identification is global. The identity corresponds to and the other coordinates zero. For a traceless tangent matrix , the induced squared norm is
Polarization gives .
The Killing form of is . This normalization can be checked without assuming it: for , and , the brackets are , , . Taking traces of their three-dimensional adjoint matrices gives , , and all other basis pairings zero. These agree with .
Both left and right multiplication by matrices in preserve , hence its polarized ambient bilinear form and the induced metric. Equality at the identity therefore propagates throughout the group:
In particular the Killing-form Einstein metric calculation gives , consistent with unit-radius three-dimensional Anti-de Sitter spacetime.
Every element of preserves the ambient quadratic form, hence the hyperboloid and its induced metric, and so acts by isometries. Define the left-right double cover of SO0(2,2) by
This is a group homomorphism, since successive actions multiply the two factors in the same order. It preserves ; as a transformation of the four-dimensional matrix space it has determinant . Thus it takes values in .
If its action is the identity, applying it to gives . Commuting with every matrix then forces to be scalar. The condition leaves only or . Hence
The differential is . A zero differential implies and that is scalar; tracelessness makes . It is therefore an isomorphism onto the target Lie algebra, since both dimensions are six. The image is an open subgroup. Since is connected, the image is connected and is exactly the identity component : an open subgroup of a connected group is also closed and must be the whole group. Thus the precise covering statement is
It is not onto the disconnected full . For example, conjugation , , sends to and belongs to the other component of . It reverses the orientation of the negative two-plane and is not in the image of the connected source.
The Adjoint representation of a Lie group of preserves its Killing form of metric signature and gives a second double cover,
Its kernel is the scalar centre; its differential is injective and both dimensions are three, so the same connected-image argument proves surjectivity onto the identity component. The full again has an additional component. Thus is locally the same Lie group geometry as , with its Killing metric, and globally is its central quotient.
With the printed periodic time, the group model has topology and closed timelike curves, since varying at fixed spatial position gives a timelike circle. The causally unwrapped version of Anti-de Sitter spacetime instead has and is the universal covering Lie group. It must not be substituted silently for the periodic spacetime specified here.
Take positive outward and define the separation as upper minus lower position. The Newtonian potential of a point mass gives the acceleration . Expanding its difference across a separation gives the tidal force equation
The upper particle falls slightly less rapidly, so the separation increases. If the upper particle carries the electric charge and the electric field points outward, the extra relative acceleration is . Reversing the field or placing the charge on the lower particle changes its sign. Write this signed acceleration as and put . With initial relative velocity zero and nearly constant and , the ordinary differential equation has solution
For , the leading changes due to the tidal force and electric field are respectively
with the stated sign convention. Thus, for a nonzero fixed electric acceleration,
A laboratory of size has , so this ratio tends to zero as . This is local tidal acceleration scaling: gravitational relative acceleration is proportional to separation, whereas the electric difference persists even at coincident positions.
The duration also matters. At fixed time, in absolute size, but need not tend to zero. To keep the electrically displaced particles in the shrinking laboratory, take ; then . Alternatively a stationary terrestrial laboratory has a free-fall time of order , giving . Both make precise the small spacetime-region limit. An extended, long-running experiment can still measure arbitrarily small tidal forces.
The weak equivalence principle says that freely falling test particles with the same initial data have composition-independent motion. In particular, a freely falling frame removes the common gravitational acceleration of both particles. The electric accelerations depend on charge and cannot be removed for charged and uncharged particles simultaneously by the same change of frame.
The Einstein equivalence principle extends the freely falling laboratory statement to all local nongravitational experiments: their outcomes obey special relativity, with local Lorentz invariance and local position invariance. The strong equivalence principle also includes local gravitational experiments and bodies with significant gravitational binding energy. It asserts universality of their free fall and independence of local experimental outcomes from the laboratory's location and velocity. The two-particle experiment illustrates the local distinction between gravity and a nongravitational force; by itself it does not establish this stronger claim about self-gravitating bodies.
In a metric theory, the common freely falling trajectories are timelike geodesics of a Lorentzian metric. Normal coordinates make and the Christoffel symbols zero at one point. Fermi normal coordinates do the same along a reference timelike geodesic. The residual effects are controlled by the Riemann curvature tensor through geodesic deviation, and enter the local metric at quadratic order in distance. Curvature is a physical tidal field, so no coordinate choice removes it over a finite region.
A relativistic theory should consequently couple matter universally to the metric tensor, recover nongravitational laws in local inertial frames and recover the Newtonian limit. General relativity implements this with the Einstein field equations; the contracted Bianchi identity is consistent with stress-energy conservation. The equivalence principle motivates this geometric description but does not alone uniquely determine the field equations. Extra gravitational fields may satisfy the Einstein equivalence principle for ordinary matter while failing the strong equivalence principle because local gravitational measurements or self-gravitating trajectories depend on those fields.
For the full unit-radius two-dimensional de Sitter spacetime, the coordinate ranges are
One can use with endpoints identified. If the identification is omitted, the same line element describes the universal covering spacetime instead. The periodicity follows from the hyperboloid embedding
The induced ambient Minkowski metric is precisely the given Lorentzian metric.
Using an affine parameter , the geodesic Lagrangian is . The nonzero Christoffel symbols are
Thus the geodesic equations and their first integrals are
Here for unit-speed timelike geodesics, for null geodesics and for unit-speed spacelike geodesics. The conserved is the geodesic conserved quantity from a Killing vector for the angular symmetry.
All geodesics of two-dimensional de Sitter spacetime can be written especially simply in the embedding. If is the initial point and the initial tangent, with , , , the geodesic has normal ambient acceleration . Therefore
These curves stay in the two-plane spanned by and , preserve both constraints and have no tangential acceleration. They consequently solve the geodesic equation and exhaust all initial directions.
An isometry can move the chosen point to , namely . For future-directed timelike geodesics take , obtaining
The continuous angular branch has , and every real gives a distinct timelike direction. The two null geodesics have and
For spacelike geodesics take , giving
They are closed with period in affine arclength and . In particular, is the equatorial geodesic . These three families, with reversals of parametrization allowed, are the requested complete set through the chosen point.
The conformal time substitution gives
Hence
Multiplying by gives the regular conformal cylinder of two-dimensional de Sitter spacetime. Adding completes the conformal compactification; both boundary circles are spacelike. Null geodesics are straight lines through the origin. The other families have the useful diagram equations
The image sketches representative directions from each family; the formulas allow all intermediate directions.
Figure 1.
Geodesics through one point and observer horizons on the two-dimensional de Sitter conformal cylinder
. Details.
For the complete observer , let be the shortest angular distance on the circle. Since light travels one unit of angular distance per unit conformal time, an event at can signal to the observer at some finite future time precisely when
Equality defines its future observer event horizon. Likewise an event can receive a signal emitted by the observer precisely when
and equality defines the past horizon. In the lift , their branches are and . The common communication region is the diamond , the observer's static patch of de Sitter spacetime. These are the observer horizons in two-dimensional de Sitter spacetime. Every complete timelike observer has analogous horizons after a de Sitter isometry; they depend on the observer, rather than enclosing an intrinsic black-hole region.
Despite these horizons, each constant- circle is a Cauchy hypersurface of the full spacetime: any inextendible causal curve crosses it exactly once. The global spacetime is therefore globally hyperbolic and has no Cauchy horizons. The conformal boundaries lie at infinite proper time for complete timelike geodesics and infinite affine distance for complete null geodesics, so their finite height in the diagram is not a physical incompleteness.
Identify the ambient real four-dimensional vector space with real matrices by
For , the linear action preserves this quadratic form. It gives a group homomorphism to the special orthogonal group of signature ; its determinant on matrix space is . The group is connected: an oriented Gram–Schmidt factorization writes every element as a rotation times an upper triangular matrix with positive diagonal and determinant one, and each factor varies in a connected space. Thus the image lies in the identity component .
If for every , taking gives . A matrix commuting with every real matrix is scalar, and its determinant-one condition then gives . The kernel is therefore exactly . Infinitesimally the action is , with traceless. If this vanishes for every , then and it is scalar and traceless, hence zero. The differential is injective; source and target Lie algebras each have dimension six, so it is an isomorphism. The image is therefore an open subgroup of the connected target, which must be the entire target. Consequently
The finite quotient is by the diagonal central subgroup, not by a sign in just one factor. The connected-component subscript is a genuine qualification of the source's displayed formula: the full is disconnected and cannot be isomorphic to a quotient of the connected product.
Let the anti-de Sitter radius be . Its quadric is , or . Thus the map identifies this quadric smoothly and globally with . This is the group model of three-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime. The induced Lorentzian metric is bi-invariant, since the two matrix multiplication actions preserve the ambient quadratic form. At the identity, tangent matrices are traceless and
Indeed, for a traceless matrix , , and polarizing gives this metric. For the Killing form is : in the basis , and , the brackets are , , , giving , and the remaining independent pairings zero. Therefore .
The canonical torsion-free connection on a Lie group is the Levi-Civita connection of this bi-invariant pseudo-Riemannian metric. Its Ricci tensor, already calculated from the double bracket, is
Substitution into the vacuum Einstein field equations gives
Thus the group metric solves the three-dimensional vacuum equations with negative cosmological constant.
The antipodal map is , multiplication by the central element . Hence the antipodal quotient is , with the same local curvature and cosmological constant. To see the global time issue, use
The induced metric is
On the quadric has period ; curves with fixed are closed timelike curves. The antipodal identification is , and does not eliminate this problem. At , even the half-period time shift closes after the antipodal quotient.
If global time is not identified, take the universal cover, with . The topology of is , as follows from the same rotation–triangular decomposition, so the universal cover is diffeomorphic to and carries the lifted group structure . The metric and Einstein equation are unchanged locally. Here is a global time function with timelike gradient, excluding closed causal curves. Unwrapped anti-de Sitter spacetime is the universal covering group, rather than the original embedded quadric or its antipodal quotient; retaining the antipodal time-shift identification would wrap time again.
Assume the level set is regular and non-null. The latter hypothesis is necessary: a null hypersurface has a degenerate induced metric and hence no ordinary intrinsic Levi-Civita connection determined by that metric. Normalize the normal vector and define the non-null hypersurface projection by
Here denotes the induced metric restricted to tangent vectors, while its ambient extension annihilates . The intrinsic covariant derivative is for tangent vector fields. Projection of the ambient torsion-free connection and metric compatibility shows that is the Levi-Civita connection of . Define the extrinsic curvature by , or . It is symmetric: differentiating the defining function twice and projecting removes the derivative of its normalization, leaving a multiple of its symmetric Hessian. This sign convention makes the scalar second fundamental form .
Let be the tangent linear map characterized by . Differentiating and gives the Gauss formula
Fix the Riemann curvature tensor convention
Applying the Gauss formula twice gives
Subtracting the expression with interchanged, and then subtracting the bracket derivative, proves
Thus the Gauss–Codazzi equations for a non-null hypersurface give the intrinsic Riemann curvature tensor as
All free indices here are tangent to the hypersurface. The normal component of the same calculation is
After antisymmetrizing and using , this yields the curved-ambient Codazzi equation
The extrinsic curvature measures how tangent planes turn in the ambient manifold; the Gauss equation says that this turning contributes to intrinsic curvature even when the ambient Riemann curvature tensor is zero.
For the quadric in Minkowski spacetime, write its position vector as . On the hypersurface, and differentiating this identity in a tangent direction gives . Hence is a unit normal and a spacelike vector, , and in flat Cartesian coordinates. Therefore . The ambient Riemann curvature tensor vanishes, so
This is unit-radius de Sitter spacetime. Reversing the normal changes to but does not change this curvature. An opposite overall convention for the Riemann curvature tensor would reverse both curvature signs below.
To retain a four-dimensional Lorentzian metric while reversing the curvature, take a flat ambient metric with two negative directions and the quadric
Now the position vector is a unit normal with negative squared norm, so while remains true. The Gauss equation gives
This is unit-radius Anti-de Sitter spacetime. If a positive-definite induced metric is acceptable, an even simpler alternative is to keep the original one-time ambient Minkowski metric and change the quadric level to . Each sheet then gives four-dimensional hyperbolic space with the same negative curvature, but its induced signature differs from that of de Sitter spacetime.
Use geometrized units and metric signature , with . In the exterior of Schwarzschild spacetime, put . The Schwarzschild tortoise coordinate satisfies
The retarded and advanced null coordinates and then give . The logarithmic divergence of suggests exponentiating these null coordinates. In the right exterior define the Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates
Their product eliminates :
Since and , the Schwarzschild metric becomes
Here is an implicitly defined function of . The derivative of the right side with respect to is , which is nonzero at . The inverse function theorem therefore makes smooth across that surface, and the coefficient of tends to . Thus the Schwarzschild event horizon is a coordinate singularity of the original chart, while this Lorentzian metric remains regular there.
Extend the Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates to all real with . The signs give two exterior regions, and , a future black hole region , and a past white hole region . The event horizons are or , intersecting at the bifurcation surface. The boundary has and is a genuine Schwarzschild singularity, as the Kretschmann scalar diverges there.
Finally, and give and a radial metric proportional to . Hence radial null geodesics have slopes , the event horizons are , and the singular boundaries are . This constructs the maximal Kruskal extension; a black hole produced by collapse need not contain the second exterior or the white hole of that eternal extension.
Write , , , and . Use ingoing Kerr coordinates, so and . To see the cancellations without expanding every term, write the Kerr metric in the equivalent form
The combinations become
The first square contributes , cancelling the explicit radial term. Expanding the remaining terms gives
There is no denominator in this Lorentzian metric. At the outer horizon , and the components are smooth. The determinant is , so away from the usual polar-coordinate degeneracy the metric is nondegenerate and extends across . The axis can be covered by regular angular charts. Thus the Boyer-Lindquist coordinates are singular there, while the ingoing Kerr coordinates are regular at the future horizon.
For physical nonextremality the invariant parameter condition is , . The printed is sufficient when the rotation orientation has been chosen so that ; without that convention it needs the absolute value.
A spacetime is a smooth four-dimensional manifold equipped with a smooth Lorentzian metric, conventionally of metric signature , and a choice of time orientation. The usual manifold assumptions include the Hausdorff space and second-countable space conditions. A physical model also specifies matter fields and requires the Einstein field equations and matter equations.
Diffeomorphism invariance of general relativity means that relabelling events by a smooth invertible map, while transforming the metric tensor and every matter field together, preserves the form of the equations. Passively, a coordinate change gives new components for the same geometric fields. Actively, pulling all fields back by a diffeomorphism gives another representative of the same physical geometry, subject to any prescribed boundary conditions or boundary symmetries.
The geometry and matter together carry the physical content; coordinate labels do not. A diffeomorphism need not be an isometry of a fixed metric, and unrelated metrics are not automatically physically equivalent.