Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / Paper 2 / 6

An order-$n$ Cartesian tensor has $3^n$ components whose values in two orthonormal Cartesian frames satisfywith repeated indices summed as in Einstein notation. It is an isotropic tensor when its components are unchanged by every proper rotation, $R\in SO(3)$.

For rank two, a half-turn about any coordinate axis changes the sign of each component having exactly one index along that axis. Invariance therefore makes every off-diagonal component zero. Quarter-turns interchanging two coordinate axes then require $T_{11}=T_{22}=T_{33}$. Thus, without assuming symmetry in advance,Conversely, the Kronecker delta is invariant because $R_{ik}{R}_{jk}={\delta }_{ij}$, so every tensor of this form is isotropic.

For rank three the general proper-rotation invariant form iswhere ${ϵ}_{ijk}$ is the Levi-Civita symbol. The convention matters: the isotropic rank-three tensor and reflections distinction says that invariance of a polar tensor under all $R\in O(3)$ would force $b=0$. A nonzero ${ϵ}_{ijk}$ is invariant under proper rotations, and is a pseudotensor under the full orthogonal group. The shell integrals below are invariant under reflections as well, so their odd moments vanish.

Introduce the second moment tensor $M_{ij}={\int }_V{x}_i{x}_j{d}^{3}x$. The spherical shell is preserved by every rotation, so this is an isotropic tensor, $M_{ij}=A{\delta }_{ij}$. Its trace determines the constant:Contracting with the components of the two unit vectors givesThis is the second-order case of radial tensor moments in three dimensions.

Under inversion $\mathbf{x}\mapsto -\mathbf{x}$, the spherical shell and its volume element are unchanged, while the product of three scalar products changes sign. Its integral is therefore its own negative:Equivalently, its rank-three moment tensor is completely symmetric and cannot have a nonzero multiple of the antisymmetric Levi-Civita symbol.

Let $M_{ijkl}={\int }_V{x}_i{x}_j{x}_k{x}_l{d}^{3}x$. It is an isotropic tensor and is invariant under every permutation of its four indices. Thus the three coefficients in the general rank-four isotropic form must coincide:A double tensor contraction givesHere the three contracted Kronecker delta products contribute $9$, $3$ and $3$. Contracting instead with the four unit vectors yieldsThis agrees with subtracting two instances of the isotropic fourth moment of a ball.