Past exam of the symmetry and relativity course of the University of Oxford / 2022 / 1 / a / Solution

Write the Lorentz transformation as $x^{\prime \mu }={\Lambda }^{\mu }{}_{\nu }{x}^{\nu }$. Acting on a scalar field, the chain rule gives the four-gradientFor the specified Lorentz boost, the inverse is obtained by changing $\beta$ to $-\beta$, soThese are precisely the covector component rules for the lowered coordinates. Raising the index with the Minkowski metric ${\eta }^{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{diag}(-1,1,1,1)$ reverses the time component, yieldingIndeed ${\partial }^{\prime 0}=\gamma ({\partial }^0-\beta {\partial }^1)$ and ${\partial }^{\prime 1}=\gamma ({\partial }^1-\beta {\partial }^0)$, the contravariant four-vector rules. Thus the index on a partial derivative with respect to an upper coordinate is lower.