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In the mathematical field of differential geometry, the Riemann curvature tensor or Riemann–Christoffel tensor (after Bernhard Riemann and Elwin Bruno Christoffel) is the most common way used to express the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. It assigns a tensor to each point of a Riemannian manifold (i.e., it is a tensor field).
For example, for the tangent bundle of a Riemannian manifold, the structure group is O(n) and Ω is a 2-form with values in the Lie algebra of O(n), i.e. the antisymmetric matrices. In this case the form Ω is an alternative description of the curvature tensor, i.e. (,) = (,),
The variation formula computations above define the principal symbol of the mapping which sends a pseudo-Riemannian metric to its Riemann tensor, Ricci tensor, or scalar curvature.
The three identities form a complete list of symmetries of the curvature tensor, i.e. given any tensor that satisfies the identities above, one could find a Riemannian manifold with such a curvature tensor at some point. Simple calculations show that such a tensor has / independent components.
The coordinate-independent definition of the square of the line element ds in an n-dimensional Riemannian or Pseudo Riemannian manifold (in physics usually a Lorentzian manifold) is the "square of the length" of an infinitesimal displacement [2] (in pseudo Riemannian manifolds possibly negative) whose square root should be used for computing curve length: = = (,) where g is the metric tensor ...
A Riemannian space form is a Riemannian manifold with constant curvature which is additionally connected and geodesically complete. A Riemannian space form is said to be a spherical space form if the curvature is positive, a Euclidean space form if the curvature is zero, and a hyperbolic space form or hyperbolic manifold if
Since any Riemannian metric is parallel with respect to its Levi-Civita connection, this shows that the Riemann tensor of any constant-curvature space is also parallel. The Ricci tensor is then given by Ric = ( n − 1 ) κ g {\displaystyle \operatorname {Ric} =(n-1)\kappa g} and the scalar curvature is n ( n − 1 ) κ . {\displaystyle n(n-1 ...
In two dimensions, every conformal metric is locally conformally flat. In dimension n > 3 a conformal metric is locally conformally flat if and only if its Weyl tensor vanishes; in dimension n = 3, if and only if the Cotton tensor vanishes. Conformal geometry has a number of features which distinguish it from (pseudo-)Riemannian geometry.