Parallel transport on a manifold

Santiago Casas 31.05.2011

Abstract We nd the equations of parallel transport on a 2-dimensional sphere and solve them for the specic case of a unit vector transported along a closed path, composed of four dierent curves. Finally we show how the non-conservation of the vector components is a measure of the curvature of the manifold.

Introduction
In school we learn how to move a vector in at 3-dimensional space, by transporting it always parallel to itself. By doing this, the vector does not change its orientation or its magnitude and we can say that the vector is the same after being moved a certain distance. However on a curved surface, or a general manifold, the notion of a vector is only local. Each vector lives in his own tangent vector space, that can only be dened locally for each point on the manifold, so there is no natural way of relating or comparing vectors at dierent points. That is why we need a general denition of parallel transport, that allows us to compare dierent vectors at dierent points and gives us a prescription on how to move a vector around a manifold without really altering the vector. The parallel transport is dened using so called connections, that as the name states, help us to connect vectors at dierent points. This denition has to be very general for any curved space, but should also contain the special case of euclidean geometry, in which moving a vector parallel to itself is a trivial operation. On a curved space, maybe against our normal intuition, despite of transporting the vector always parallel to itself around a closed loop, we nd that, when we go back to the point where we started, the vector returns rotated compared to the one we started with. This eect is due to our lack of intuition for parallel lines and geodesics (lines of shortest distance between two points) on a manifold, and not because we chose a bad denition of parallel transport. The fact that the vector returns rotated to the starting point, is actually deeply related with the denition of curvature on the manifold. This text is meant to be self-contained, but therefore the reader must have some background in vector and tensor analysis, calculus, dierential equations and preferably some basics of dierential geometry. Some concepts and denitions are going to be explained on the way, but many other are going to be only stated or used, because this text is very far from being a text for learning about dierential geometry or general relativity. The interested reader can check some of the recommended literature.

Metric of the Sphere

For a 2-dimensional sphere of unit radius, we have the line element: ds2 = d2 + sin2 d2 , this allows us to measure innitesimal distances ds on the sphere. Here we are using common spherical coordinates, where and are the polar and azimuthal angles respectively. This line element yields the following metric: g = g = 1 0 1 0 0 sin2 0 1/ sin2 (1.1) (1.2)

The connections on a manifold, also called Christoel symbols are given by: 1 lk g (gik,j + gjk,l gij,k ) (1.3) 2 This connections are called Riemannian connections, when they can be expressed as functions of the metric. Later on we are going to see what this implies for parallel transport. Because of the metric being diagonal, we can calculate the Christoel symbols only for l = k = 1, 2 and we nd that the non vanishing terms are: i = jk 1 22 2 12 = 2 21 = sin cos = cot (1.4) (1.5)

The Christoel symbols are symmetric in its two lower indices, because we are working on a torsion-free manifold. For more details on this, see [WB].

Denition of Parallel transport

When we say parallel transport on a manifold, we mean that we want to carry a vector v along a curve dened on a manifold M , in such a way that the vector is parallel to itself when transported an innitesimal distance. Because we want the vector to be unchanged when we perform the transport along the curve, we dene a derivative operator, which applied to the vector, along the direction of the curve, gives zero. By doing that we are saying that the vector does not change with respect to a certain operation. This operation is called parallel transport and at the same time it helps us to dene the derivative operator, which is called the covariant derivative . Using this denition of covariant derivative, the equation of parallel transport can be simply stated as:
v

=0

(2.1)

Where is the tangent vector to the curve along which we are transporting the vector. In terms of local coordinates, this is equivalent to: v k + k xi v j = 0 ij (2.2)

In our notation each curve is parametrized by t, so that for a specic curve, each of the coordinates xi is a function of the parameter t. Therefore xi is the derivative of the coordinate xi with respect to t, and therefore xi represents the tangent vector to the curve at the point parametrized by x(t). The v k are the derivatives of the k vector component, with respect to the curve parameter t. Therefore, this equation is telling us, that we have a dierential equation for each vector component, that depends on the Christoel symbols and on the specic path, along which the vector is parallel transported. The theory of dierential equations tells us, that there is a unique solution to this equation if we specify initial conditions. So by specifying initial components of the vector v and inserting the nal value of the parameter t we can nd uniquely how the vector changed along a specic curve, after traveling a distance parametrized by t. On a closed loop, formed by dierent curves, we calculate how the components change for the rst curve and then we use these components as the new vector v k and do the same calculation for the next curve. The denition of Riemannian connection in equation (1.3) leaves the metric invariant after applying to it a covariant derivative operator. Because the metric in a Riemannian manifold denes the norm and the scalar product of vectors, this guarantees that the norm of the vector will be unchanged after a parallel transport on an arbitrary curve. This means that we have to get in the end a vector with the same length as the one we started with. The fact that the components of the vector change along the path is also due to the change of the direction of the basis vectors on the manifold and this is because we are dealing with a curved space, in which the vector space, spanned by the basis vectors, is only locally dened at each point. The concept of parallel transport also allows us to dene a geodesic, as the curves whose tangent vectors remain constant after being parallel-transported along the same curve. That means that the covariant derivative of a tangent vector to a geodesic vanishes identically:

=0

(2.3)

This is called the geodesic equation, and with it we can nd the curves of shortest distance between two points on the manifold. See [WD] for a detailed derivation of this equation. In the following section, we will nd the solutions to this equations for a specic closed loop on a 2-dimensional sphere.

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3.1

Parallel transport of a unit vector along a closed loop on a sphere

Parametrized curves and the equation of parallel transport

Now we want to calculate how a vector changes when it is parallel-transported along a closed loop on a sphere. We are going to consider a unit vector that is tangent to the equator at the point = , = 0. We are considering spherical 2 coordinates, where is the polar angle, going from 0 in the south pole to in the north pole and the azimuthal angle, going from 0 to 2. Lines of constant are the lines of constant latitude or latitude circles and lines of constant are the lines of constant longitude or meridians in terms of geography. The initial tangent vector has in these coordinates the following component form: v = 0 + 1 := (0, 1) (3.1)

Where and are the unit basis vectors along the and directions respectively. In dierential geometry, the basis vectors are the partial derivatives with respect to the coordinates. This basis vectors, form what its called a coordinate basis. Starting at = 0 and = , we are going to consider a closed loop dened in 2 the following way: First move along the equator in east direction a magnitude of = /4, then move north along the meridian for = /4, now move west along the line of constant latitude back to = 0 and nally move back to the initial point following the meridian with = 0. Using t as the curve parameter, scaled to run always from 0 at the beginning of the curve, to 1 at its end, we have the following curves i (t) = ((t), (t)): a (t) = ( , t) b (t) = ( + t, ) 2 4 2 4 4 c (t) = ( , t) d (t) = ( t, ) 4 4 4 2 4 4 So a and c are latitude circles and b and d are meridians. Returning back to the equation of parallel transport in local coordinates (2.2) and using only the non-vanishing Christoel symbols (1.4) and (1.5) we nd the following system of equations: v 1 sin cos x2 v 2 = 0 v 2 + cot (x1 v 2 + x2 v 1 ) = 0 (3.2)

Where v 1 , v 2 are the rst and second components of the vector v we want to transport, and x1 , x2 are the rst and second components of the tangent vector to the curve at the point t, i.e. x(t) = d(t) . dt 5

Figure 3.1: Closed loop on a sphere, formed by 4 dierent curves, each of a dierent color. Curve a is blue, b red, c purple, and d green. The unit tangent vector parallel to the equator is shown as a black arrow.

3.2

General solution of the system of dierential equations

First we are going to solve the equations in general and then we will nd how the components of the vector change along each curve. For the curves along the meridians (b , d ) we have x2 = 0, because (t) = const. along those curves, so using equation (3.2) we nd: v1 v2 = = 0 cot x1 v 2 (3.3) (3.4)

First of all we see that the rst component of the vector does not change along a meridian curve. On the other hand, for the second component we obtain an apparent complicated dierential equation, but we can solve this noting that the parametrization is done with constant velocity, that means (t) is linear in t. Therefore x1 = d(t) = and because the parameter t runs from 0 to 1, dt we have: dt = d, where is the nal value of the coordinate .

So we can rewrite (3.4) as: dv 2 v2 = = = cot dt cot d

d ln(sin ) (3.5) sin = ln sin 0 sin 0 2 v 2 = v0 (3.6) sin This means that transporting the vector along a meridian, will change its second component, by a factor that depends on the initial and nal polar angles. Along the latitude circles (a , c ) we have x1 = 0, because (t) = const. along these curves and we can again interpret x2 = d(t) = as the constant dt angular speed the vector has, while being transported along the curve. Using again equation(3.2), we nd the following system of equations: v2 ln 2 v0 v1 v
2

= =

sin cos v 2 cot v

1

(3.7) (3.8)

This is a set of two coupled dierential equations (each component depends on the derivative of the other). To solve this we derive (3.7) with respect to the parameter t and insert (3.8), solving for v 1 we obtain: v1 v1 v1 v1 + 2 v1 = = = = sin cos ( cos2 2 v 1 2 v 1 0 (3.9) cos 1 v ) sin

Where we have identied = cos , for a constant value of , because we are moving only along the coordinate. We can see that (3.9) is just the equation of an harmonic oscillator, with general solution: v 1 = A cos t + B sin t (3.10) where the frequency is and A and B are coecients that we still have to determine, which depend on the initial conditions. This means that the rst component of the vector, when parallel-transported along a latitude circle, changes according to a sinusoidal function with period 1/ = 1/ cos , so that its change is dependent on the distance traveled and on the nal point. For the second component, we have from (3.7) the following equation: v1 (3.11) sin cos In the next section we will nd the specic solutions for the path described in gure 3.1. v2 = 7

3.3

Specic solutions for a closed path

We will now show the solutions of the equations of the previous section, for a unit vector parallel tangent to the equator, that is transported along the paths (a b c d ) of section (3.1). The initial vector is, as we have seen, v = v0 = (0, 1) in our set of coordinates. For the path a we have: x = (0, ) and = /2, so following equations 4 (3.7) and (3.8) we nd that: v1 = v2 = 0 So that the vector components do not change along the path a. This result is straightforward to interpret, because in this case we are transporting a tangent vector to a curve along itself, and the fact that the vector remains unchanged, is telling us that the curve is a geodesic curve. So we have found that the equator is a geodesic on the 2-dimensional sphere. For the path b we can use directly equations (3.3) and (3.6) to nd: v1 v2 = 0

2 = v0

sin( ) 2 = 2 sin( ) 4
4,

So the vector at the end of the curve b is now: vb = (0, 2). On the path c, we are moving along , with a constant value of = we have: = cos = cos( ) = 4 2

so

Now we want to nd the values of A and B in equation (3.10). We know that at the beginning of the curve, that is when t = 0, the vector is still unchanged such that: v1 v
1

= =

A cos t + B sin t = A cos(0) + B sin(0) = 0 0 B sin t

4

A =

To nd B, we note that from equation (3.7) and for = have: v 1 = sin cos v 2 = sin cos v 2 1 = 2 2 but we had v 1 = B sin t v 1 = B cos t 8

and v 2 =

2, we

so for t = 0we nd B B = 2 and therefore: B=1 So we can solve for the components of the new vector vc (at the end of the path c, where t = 1): v1 v2 = = sin( t) = sin( ) 4 2 cos( t) = 2 cos( ) sin cos 4 2

And for the last path d, we use equations (3.3) and (3.6) as we did with path b, to nd: v1 v2 = = sin t = sin( ) 4 2 sin 2 sin 0 4 = cos( ) = 2 cos( t) v0 sin sin 4 2 2

Although the path d is a geodesic like the curve a, the vector components change this time, because it is not the tangent vector to the geodesic anymore. So the nal vector vd we obtain at the end of the path d, that is after returning to the point were we started, is now: vd (0.572, 0.850) And we can see that its norm is conserved after a parallel transport around a closed loop, as we had demanded above: vd = sin2 ( ) + cos2 ( ) = 1 4 2 4 2

Using the known formula to nd the angle between two vectors: AB = A B cos

We nd that the angle between the original vector and its parallel transported version is: 31.7

Figure 3.2: Graph showing the vector in a dierent color after being transported along the respective colored curve. The resulting nal vector forms an angle of about 32 with the original one. The image is a vector graphic, so that it can be zoomed or rescaled without any loss of quality.

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Appendix A: Relation between parallel transport and the Riemann tensor

As mentioned in the introduction, there is a deep connection between parallel transport and the curvature of a manifold. If after being parallel-transported around a closed loop, the vector returns rotated with respect to itself, this is a clear indication that the manifold is not euclidean. Now we are going to derive the full expression for parallel transport around a closed loop, using the fact that the closed loop is innitesimally small. We are going to nd that the change in the vector components is related to the subtended area of the loop and the Riemann tensor on the manifold.

Figure 4.1: Closed loop on a manifold, following coordinate curves of constant x1 or x2 . Consider the loop shown in gure 4.1 formed by four intersecting sections of coordinate lines, where the rst to lines have coordinates: x1 = a, x2 = b and the other two x1 = a + a, x2 = b + b, where a, b are innitesimal. Because this lines follow curves of coordinate lines (for simplicity), the equation of parallel transport (2.2) and the properties of the covariant derivatives yield the following equations, for transporting the vector along the direction of x1 and x2 respectively: v x1 v x2 = = v 1 v 2 (4.1) (4.2)

Integrating this equations on both sides and putting the right limits we nd the following equations: Trajectory AB :

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x2 =b

v 1 dx = v (B) v (A) = x1

v dx1 1
x2 =b

(4.3)

Rearranging for Trajectory BC: v (C) = v (B)

x1 =a+a

v dx2 2

(4.4)

Trajectory CD: v (D) = v (C)

v dx1 1
x2 =b+b

(4.5)

Trajectory DA: v (D) = v (A)

v dx2 2
x1 =a

(4.6)

For the entire loop we know that the change of the components of the vector v are then: v = v (Af inal ) v (Ainitial ) (4.7)

Therefore we need to sum the individual changes of equations (4.3) ,(4.4),(4.5),(4.6). After rearranging and using the properties of denite integrals, we nd: x2
a a+a

v dx1 a 1

x1

b+b

v dx2 2

(4.8) (4.9)

ab

( v ) + 2 ( v ) 1 x1 2 x

For obtaining equation (4.8) we used the following expansion of the integrals: f = f + b 2 f x
x1 =b+b x2 =b x2 =b

And for equation (4.9) we used the following approximation to rst order in b (for the innitesimal loop):
b b+b

f dx = F (b + b) F (b)

dF b f b dx

We leave the explicit derivation as an exercise for the reader. Now we calculate the partial derivatives on equation (4.9) acting on the Christoel symbols: 12

 ( v ) x1 2 ( v ) x2 1

= =

v + v,1 2,1 2 v + v,2 1,2 1

(4.10) (4.11)

Where we have just applied the Leibniz rule. Here we use the common notation: A, = x . The terms v,1 and v,2 can be written as v and v by using equations 1 2 (4.1) and (4.2). By inserting this into equation (4.9), rearranging terms and renaming some dummy indices (exercise for the reader), we obtain: v ab + v 1,2 1 2 2,1 2 1 (4.12)

By consulting the reference text books, [WD, WB, CL], we see that the expression in brackets is just the Riemann tensor R in 2 dimensions, so more generally we can write:
v ab R

(4.13)

This means that the change in the components of a vector, when parallel transported along a closed loop, depend on the area of the loop (therefore its path) and on the curvature of the manifold. In a at space, the Riemann tensor would be zero, therefore the operation of parallel transport does not change the components of a vector. In a spherical geometry like the one we used above, the Riemann tensor has some non-zero components and that is why the vector ends up being rotated when it returns to the starting position.

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Appendix B: Mathematica code for generating gures.

Algorithm 1 Mathematica code for generating the graphs of this document. sphere1 = ParametricPlot3D[{Cos[\[Theta]] Sin[\[Phi]], Sin[\[Theta]] Sin[\[Phi]], Cos[\[Phi]]}, {\[Theta], 0, 2 Pi}, {\[Phi], 0, Pi}, Boxed -> False, Axes -> False, MeshStyle -> Opacity[0.3]]; \[Theta][t_] = (Pi/4)*t; \[Phi][t_] = Pi/2; gamma1[t_] = {Cos[\[Theta][t]] Sin[\[Phi][t]], Sin[\[Theta][t]] Sin[\[Phi][t]], Cos[\[Phi][t]]}; \[Theta]2[t_] = Pi/4; \[Phi]2[t_] = Pi/2 - Pi/4*t; gamma2[t_] = {Cos[\[Theta]2[t]] Sin[\[Phi]2[t]], Sin[\[Theta]2[t]] Sin[\[Phi]2[t]], Cos[\[Phi]2[t]]}; \[Theta]3[t_] = Pi/4 - (Pi/4)*t; \[Phi]3[t_] = Pi/4; gamma3[t_] = {Cos[\[Theta]3[t]] Sin[\[Phi]3[t]], Sin[\[Theta]3[t]] Sin[\[Phi]3[t]], Cos[\[Phi]3[t]]}; \[Theta]4[t_] = 0; \[Phi]4[t_] = Pi/4 + (Pi/4)*t; gamma4[t_] = {Cos[\[Theta]4[t]] Sin[\[Phi]4[t]], Sin[\[Theta]4[t]] Sin[\[Phi]4[t]], Cos[\[Phi]4[t]]}; gamma1dot[t_] = D[gamma1[t], t]; initialpoint1 = gamma1[0]; tangentVect1 = Graphics3D[{Black, Thick, Arrow[{initialpoint1, initialpoint1 + 1/1.33 gamma1dot[0]}]}]; gamma2dot[t_] = D[gamma2[t], t]; initialpoint2 = gamma2[0]; gamma3dot[t_] = D[gamma3[t], t]; initialpoint3 = gamma3[0]; gamma4dot[t_] = D[gamma4[t], t]; initialpoint4 = gamma4[0]; nalpoint = gamma4[1]; vect2 = Graphics3D[{Blue, Arrow[{initialpoint2, initialpoint2 + 0.6 gamma1dot[1]}]}]; vect3 = Graphics3D[{Red, Arrow[{initialpoint3, initialpoint3 - Sqrt[2]/1.33 gamma3dot[0]}]}]; vect4 = Graphics3D[{Purple, Arrow[{initialpoint4, initialpoint4 - Sin[\[Pi]/(4 Sqrt[2])]/1.33 gamma4dot[0] - ( Sqrt[2] Cos[\[Pi]/(4 Sqrt[2])])/1.33 gamma3dot[1]}]}]; nalVect = Graphics3D[{Darker[Green], Arrow[{nalpoint, nalpoint Sin[\[Pi]/(4 Sqrt[2])]/1.33 gamma4dot[1] + Cos[\[Pi]/(4 Sqrt[2])]/1.33 gamma1dot[0]}]}]; spherecurve1 = ParametricPlot3D[Evaluate[gamma1[t]], {t, 0, 1}, Boxed -> False, Axes -> False, PlotPoints -> 200, PlotStyle -> {Blue, Thick}]; spherecurve2 = ParametricPlot3D[Evaluate[gamma2[t]], {t, 0, 1}, Boxed -> False, Axes -> False, PlotPoints -> 200, PlotStyle -> {Red, Thick}]; spherecurve3 = ParametricPlot3D[Evaluate[gamma3[t]], {t, 0, 1}, Boxed -> False, Axes -> False, PlotPoints -> 200, PlotStyle -> {Purple, Thick}]; spherecurve4 = ParametricPlot3D[Evaluate[gamma4[t]], {t, 0, 1}, Boxed -> False, Axes -> False, PlotPoints -> 200, PlotStyle -> {Darker[Green], Thick}]; 15 solidcombo = Show[sphere1, spherecurve1, spherecurve2, spherecurve3, spherecurve4,tangentVect1,nalVect, vect2, vect3, vect4];

References
[WD] [CL] [WB] 1, 4 General Relativity, WALD Robert, 1984, The University of Chicago Press. 2, 4 Spacetime and Geometry, CARROLL Sean , 2004, Pearson Education. 4 Gravitation and Cosmology, WEINBERG Steven, 1972, John Wiley.

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