General Relativity AMATH475-PHYS476

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
Winter 2014
General Relativity
Homework I
To be handed in by Wednesday 29
th
January
Assignments are to be handed at the end of the lecture on Wednes-
day; penalties apply for late submission. I will not be available for
consultation on the assignment questions on the due date or the day
before.
You may use standard integrals or packages such as Mathematica
to solve any integrals you encounter; sources must be listed. You
are encouraged to discuss the questions with each other. However,
submitted work must reect an individuals eort.
Note that only few questions will be marked, not all. If you
do not do everything, it will be like playing the lottery!
DO NOT blindly grab an equation from the notes/book.
You must justify all aspects of your work.
There are three problems.
General Relativity AMATH475-PHYS476
Note: We assume c = 1.
Problem 1: tensor manipulations
1. Determine the (3d) Euclidian metric in the spherical coordinates, by performing the change
of variable from Cartesian coordinates to spherical coordinates.
2. A symmetric (respectively antisymmetric) tensor S

(resp. A

) is a tensor such that

S

= S

(resp. A

= A

). Show that any tensor T

can be decomposed into a

symmetric and antisymmetric tensor, T

= A

+ S

.
3. Show that if A

(resp. S

) is an antisymmetric tensor (resp. a symmetric tensor), then

A

(resp. S

) is still antisymmetric (resp. still symmetric), where we use a general

metric g

to lower the indices. Show that if A

(resp. S

) is an antisymmetric tensor
(resp. a symmetric tensor) in a given basis, it is still true in any other basis.
4. With A

an antisymmetric tensor and S

a symmetric tensor, show that A

= 0.
5. Consider a (4d) spacetime with metric g

= diag(a
2
(t), a
2
(t), a
2
(t), a
2
(t)), where a(t) is
a strictly positive function of time.
(a) Express g

.
(b) Express the components of v

and A

respectively in terms of v

and A

6. Let A

and B

be two arbitrary tensors. Show that A

is still a tensor.
7. If v

is a vector eld, show that its partial derivatives

x

do not form a tensor

(consider an arbitrary change of coordinates). The same argument can be extend to general
tensors.
8. Prove the following cute theorem. In Minkowski spacetime, two null (ie light-like) vectors
are orthogonal if and only if they are parallel (ie collinear). (You can prove it for simplicity
in 4d only.)
9. We consider the non-null vector V

and the general metric tensor g

. Out of them we
construct the tensor P

V
. Show that for any vector W

,
(a) the vector P

= (PW)

is orthogonal to V

,
(b) (PPW)

= (PW)

, that is P is a projector.
General Relativity AMATH475-PHYS476
(c) the tensor P denes the metric for the vectors perpendicular to V , that is if v and w
are such vectors then v

= v

.
Problem 2: Lorentz group
Consider a spacetime of dimension n with metric g

= diag(1, .., 1, 1, .., 1) with signature

(p, q), n = p + q. We note L the set of linear invertible transformations

relating dierent
inertial frames.
1. What is the equation that g

and

must satisfy if we demand the scalar product

induced by g

to be invariant under the transformations L? We note O(p, q) the subset

of L built out from the

satisfying this equation.

2. Show that O(p, q) has a group structure.
3. Prove that matrices in O(p, q) have determinant 1.
4. Prove that matrices in O(p, q) which have determinant 1 form a group whereas the ones
that have determinant 1 do not. Note that the determinant of the metric is by denition
the determinant of the metric written in the matrix form. Hence for the above metric
detg

= (1)
p
. We note the subgroup of O(p, q) with determinant 1 matrices as SO(p, q),
this is the Lorentz group. (S for special: determinant 1; O for orthogonal: preserve the
metric with signature (p, q).)
Problem 3
Consider a particle moving along the x-axis whose velocity as a function of time is given by
dx
dt
=
gt

1 + (gt)
2
,
where g is a constant.
1. Calculate the components of the particles 4-velocity, u

in the (t, x) coordinate frame.

2. Express x and t as a functions of the proper-time along the trajectory.
3. What are the components of the 4-acceleration, a

in the (t, x) coordinate frame? What

is the magnitude of the acceleration?