Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / iii / Paper 50 / 1 / c

The two coordinate tangent vectors of the embedding areTheir Euclidean inner products give the pullback of a Riemannian metric, equivalently the induced metric:Locally set $u=\rho \phi$. The line element becomes $d{u}^2+d{\hat{z}}^2$, so the induced Riemann curvature tensor vanishes identically. This is the intrinsic flatness of a circular cylinder. Its bending in the ambient space is extrinsic curvature, not intrinsic curvature; periodicity of the angular coordinate does not change the local flatness.

Choose the outward normal vector $n=(\cos \phi ,\sin \phi ,0)$ and the positive conventionThe ambient connection vanishes in Cartesian coordinates. Since ${\partial }_{\phi }n=e_{\phi }/\rho$ and ${\partial }_{\hat{z}}n=0$, the extrinsic curvature components are $K_{\phi \phi }=\rho$, $K_{\phi \hat{z}}=K_{\hat{z}\hat{z}}=0$. Taking the trace using the induced metric,Reversing the normal or using the negative extrinsic-curvature convention gives $-1/\rho$. The two principal curvatures are $1/\rho$ and zero in the chosen convention; the averaged mean curvature would be $K/2$, so it must not be confused with the requested trace.