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On page183 of Rayd'inverno "An introduction to relativity" he says that the right term in parenthesis is a gradient of some scalar field i.e. When $$\partial_a (\frac{\ X_b}{\ X^2})=\partial_b(\frac{ X_a}{\ X^2}) ,$$ $X^2\neq0$ such that $$\frac{X_a}{X^2}=f, _a \tag 1$$ where $f$ is some scalar field.

How equation (1) happened? What is the reason behind it? I don't understand it please somebody explain to me.

Qmechanic
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2 Answers2

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  1. OP's eq. (1) follows from Poincare lemma: The co-vector/1-form $$\omega~:=~\frac{ X_a\mathrm{d}x^a}{\ X^2}\tag{A}$$ is closed $$\mathrm{d}\omega~=~0,\tag{B}$$ and hence locally exact, i.e. on the form $$\omega~=~\mathrm{d}f~=~f_{,a}\mathrm{d}x^a\tag{C}$$ of a differential.

  2. Note that a vector $X^a\partial_a$ and a co-vector $X_a\mathrm{d}x^a$ are related via the musical isomorphism. This isomorphism also connects gradient vectors and differentials.

Qmechanic
  • 201,751
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I don't have that book, but if $\partial_a$, $\partial_b$ are Cartesian coordinates, the condition you provided are the coordinates of $\nabla \times \mathbf{F} = \mathbf{0}$,

with $\mathbf{F} = \dfrac{\mathbf{X}}{|\mathbf{X}|^2}$.

It's not hard to prove that $f = \ln \dfrac{|\mathbf{X}|}{X_0} $, by direct computation

$\partial_i f = \partial_i \left( \ln \dfrac{|\mathbf{X}|}{X_0} \right) = \dfrac{X_0}{|\mathbf{X}|} \dfrac{1}{X_0} \partial_i |\mathbf{X}| =\dfrac{1}{|\mathbf{X}|} \partial_i |\mathbf{X}|$

and remembering that $\partial_i |\mathbf{X}|= \frac{X_i}{|\mathbf{X}|}$ we eventually get

$\partial_i \left( \ln \dfrac{|\mathbf{X}|}{X_0} \right) = \frac{X_i}{|\mathbf{X}|^2}$

Given the condition on the curl, you can write $\mathbf{F}$ as the gradient of a scalar field, namely $\mathbf{F} = \nabla f$. Having established that, you can interpret the condition

$\partial_a \left( \dfrac{X_b}{X^2} \right) = \partial_b \left( \dfrac{X_a}{X^2} \right) $$\qquad \rightarrow \qquad$ $\partial_a F_b = \partial_b F_a$$\qquad \rightarrow \qquad$ $\partial_a \partial_b f = \partial_b \partial_a f$

with the Schwartz condition on mixed second derivatives.

basics
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  • So by definition gradient of scalar field is equal to vector divided by it's magnitude i.e $\nabla f=\frac{X}{X^2}$ (By definition) ? – Keshav Shrestha Oct 02 '22 at 05:59
  • no. I update my answer – basics Oct 02 '22 at 07:39
  • By definition, the gradient of a scalar field is a vector field that gives you the direction of the maximum growth of the function and it's related to the directional derivative in direction indicated by the unit vector $\mathbf{\hat{v}}$ by $\frac{\partial f}{\partial v} =\lim_{\alpha \rightarrow 0} \dfrac{f(\mathbf{x}+\alpha\mathbf{v}) - f(\mathbf{x})}{\alpha}= \mathbf{\hat{v}} \cdot \nabla f$ – basics Oct 02 '22 at 08:05