Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 131 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the sign conventionFor the Levi-Civita connection this is the Riemannian curvature two-form, an element of : is an endomorphism of the tangent bundle, alternating in , and the expression has tensoriality in all arguments. It is the curvature form of a connection for the tangent-bundle connection.
For the first Bianchi identity, take the cyclic sum in . Torsion-freeness says , so the double-derivative terms combine to . The remaining terms may be cyclically relabelled as . Using torsion-freeness once more, followed by the Jacobi identity for vector fields, givesThe Ricci curvature is the tracefor any orthonormal basis. The sectional curvature of the two-plane spanned by independent isThese conventions give positive curvature on a round sphere. In dimension three, put and . Curvature symmetries giveSolving this linear system yields the sectional curvatures from Ricci curvature in dimension three formulaHere is the scalar curvature. The chosen orthonormal basis need not diagonalize Ricci; its diagonal evaluations already determine these three sectional curvatures.