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Curvature calculation in a nutshell

October 5, 2003

Narit Pidokrajt
Email: narit@physto.se
Abstract
I have found, from my experience as a student of General Relativity
(GR) course, that the difficulties of GR do not stem only from under-
standing the physics of it, but also the mathematical structures, namely
differential geometry and tensor analysis. Therefore this article is writ-
ten in order to demonstrate the reader how to do some calculations in
GR vividly and explicitly. In this paper I will show in particular how
the curavature tensors and scalar are calculated in great details.

1 How to calculate the curvature of the metric

tensor
It is a very simple thing to do, you do not need to look for anything new
because there are already certain formulas/equations to use. Suppose you are
given the line element1 in the form
ds2 = gab dxa dxb (1)
where gab is a metric tensor which is a symmetric tensor with the property
gab = gba . As an example the flat Minkowski metric in Special Relativity (SR)
takes the form
ds2 = −dt2 + dx2 + dy 2 + dz 2 = ηab dxa dxb (2)
where dxa and dxb refer to the coordinates used for the metric. The metric ηab
reads  
−1 0 0 0
 0 1 0 0
ηab =  0 0 1 0 = diag(−1, 1, 1, 1)
 (3)
0 0 0 1
If you have already learned SR you would definitely know that this metric, ηab ,
is a flat metric, namely that it will lead to a zero curvature tensor and thus
the vanishing curvature scalar. But how can one show that this metric gives
the zero curvature tensor? The answer will be given here in this paper.

To obtain the Ricci curvature scalar—the curvature scalar for short, we

just have to use the following formulas step by step:
1
There are many terminologies for this, for example, the invariant interval, the metric
interval, invariant distance etc.

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1. Write down the Riemann curvature tensor, its abstract form is

a
Rbcd = ∂d Γabc − ∂c Γabd + Γm a m a
bc Γdm − Γbd Γcm (4)
where
1
Γabc = g ad (∂b gdc + ∂c gdb − ∂d gbc ) (5)
2
and it is called a Christoffel symbol or metric connection or affinity. Note
that ∂c means ∂/∂xc .
2. This is a step to compute the Christoffel symbols, which may look some-
what abstract but you just plug in your metric and its inverse and do
some differentiations and algebraic manipulations, then it is just a piece
of cake. When you are done with the Christoffel symbol calculations,
just substitute them into Eq. (4) and do everything consistently.
3. Once you have obtained the Riemann tensor, you can already see if the
metric under consideration is curved or flat. This tensor is a measure
of the intrinsic curvature at each point. It is flat if and only if its
components are zero. However you may want to contract it to obtain
the curvature scalar. And you can do so by using the following formula
c
Rab = Racb (6)
You can also obtain the Ricci tensor directly from the formula
Rab = ∂m Γm m n m m n
ab − ∂b Γam + Γab Γmn − Γan Γbm (7)
The Ricci tensor has a symmetry in its indices, namely
Rab = Rba (8)
Similar to the Riemann tensor, the Ricci tensor vanishes for the flat
spacetime manifold.
4. Now that you have the Ricci tensor, it is just a little more effort to
spend to get an eventual form of the curvature available, that is, the cur-
vature scalar which is essentially an invariant curvature scalar, because
it is independent of any position on the spacetime manifold. To get the
curvature scalar, use the formula
R = g ab Rab (9)
It is worth noting that it is not necessary to form the Ricci tensor from
the Riemann tensor and contract it to obtain the curvature scalar. It is
possible to contract the Riemann curvature tensor down to the curvature
scalar by
R = g ab Racb
c
(10)
So now if you follow these steps, you will definitely be able to calculate the
curvature tensor and scalar for any metric in question. Always be consistent
with your notations such as positions of the indices.

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2 But how do I calculate the curvature of the

metric?
Didn’t I already give you methods for doing it? Hmmm...anyway I know that
sometimes formulas are not enough, you would understand things better by
learning from examples. Thus I will show you one good example, namely the
2-sphere’s curvature tensors and scalar. I will try to do it as explicitly as I
possibly can.

The 2-sphere can be viewed as a spherical surface, once you are on it you
will not be able to tell whether it is a curved surface if you only stand on a
particular point. However if you start to move and make some measurement,
you may be able to see how curved or flat it is. In differential geometry
language we do it by the so-called parallel transport method. Nevertheless the
above sentences will still not tell you how to really do the calculation. I will
come to the point by stating that the metric for the 2-sphere is given by2
ds2 = r2 dθ2 + r2 sin2 θ dφ2 (11)
where θ and φ are conventional coordinates used in the spherical coordinates
system. Note that r is just a constant in your viewpoint—as a person stand-
ing on the 2-sphere you do not see a sphere . Only those residing in the
3 dimensional world would perceive r as a radius of the sphere. Recall that we
can write the metric in Eq. (11) in the same way as that in Eq. (1), so your
metric gab will just be µ 2 ¶
r 0
gab = (12)
0 r2 sin2 θ
Writing its components, we have g11 = r2 and g22 = r2 sin2 θ. Because we will
need to employ formulas in Eq. (4) and Eq. (5), so we compute the inverse of
the above metric, that is
µ1 ¶
ab 2 0
g = r 1 (13)
0 r2 sin 2θ

If you happen not to remember how to inverse the metric, the simple formula
is just
cofactor of gij
g ij = (14)
determinant of gij
Note also that g ab gab = 2!—it is just a contraction of the 2 metric tensors.
And now you are in a position to compute the Christoffel symbols using Eq.
(5)—what you need are just the given metric and its inverse that we have
written down above. So I will now show you some explicit calculations:
1
Γ111 = g 1d (∂d gd1 + ∂1 gd1 − ∂d g11 ) = 0 (15)
2
2
This metric given to you is equivalent to a meter stick that you can use to measure the
distance on the 2-sphere you stand on.

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Why so? It is because the sum over d is limited only to d = 1, there are no
off-diagonal terms in gad . This applies to any diagonal metric! So if you are
confronted with Γ111 , just relax—there is nothing worry. Next is,
1
Γ112 = Γ121 = g 1d (∂1 gd2 + ∂2 gd1 − ∂d g12 ) = 0 (16)
2
Again, there is no term that gives non-zero quantity. Unclear? You may
think that the for d = 1 some term will survive, but sorry...even ∂2 g11 = 0 ⇔
∂r2 /∂θ = 0! It is explicit now? Notice the symmetry in the lower indices of
the Christoffel symbols in Eq. (16).

Now comes something a bit more interesting,

1 1d
Γ122 = g (∂2 g2d + ∂2 g2d − ∂d g22 )
2
= − sin θ cos θ ⇔ it is nonzero for d=1! (17)

Other terms—which you should by now be able to compute by yourself—are

the following:

Γ211 = 0
Γ212 = Γ221 = cot θ
Γ222 = 0 (18)

Thus we have 2 non-vanishing Christoffel symbols for the metric in Eq. (12)

Γ122 = − sin θ cos θ

Γ212 = Γ221 = cot θ (19)

and we will use them for obtaining the Riemann tensor. Using formula in Eq.
(4) what you will do is similar to what we did above to obtain the Christoffel
symbols. I will show the results as follows:
1
R112 = ∂2 Γ111 − ∂1 Γ112 + Γm 1 m 1
11 Γ2m − Γ12 Γ1m = 0 (20)

where as
1
R212 1
= −R221 = ∂2 Γ121 − ∂1 Γ122 + Γm 1 m 1 2
21 Γ2m − Γ22 Γ1m = − sin θ (21)

If it is not clear to you why the above equation is so, it is because for m = 1 it
vanishes , only for m = 2 and the rest is just consistent manipulation. Another
term that is non-vanishing is
2
R112 = ∂2 Γ211 − ∂1 Γ212 + Γm 2 m 2
11 Γ2m − Γ12 Γ1m = 1 (22)

You will surely find out the same result, just work it out carefully. And believe
it or not that the remaining terms are just zero!
2 2 2 i i
R121 = R212 = R221 = Rj11 = Rj22 =0 (23)

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Up to now we have only two remaining components of the Riemann tensor. As

I said early on the (spacetime) metric is flat if and only if its Riemann tensor
is a zero tensor, namely its components are zero. So we do have here a curved
spacetime or manifold. And we are now in a good shape to make things a
lot simpler ⇒ we will contract the Riemann tensor! We contract it with the
contravariant index and the last covariant index,
µ 1 2 1 2
¶
m R111 + R112 R121 + R122
Rab = Rabm = 1 2 1 2 (24)
R211 + R212 R221 + R222

Plugging in the Riemann tensor components we have obtained above into Eq.
(24), yields the Ricci tensor!
µ ¶
1 0
Rab = (25)
0 sin2 θ

Still your curvature tensor, though in a very simple form, is not free of coor-
dinates. To obtain the curvature scalar, we contract it with g ab as follows:

1 sin2 θ 2
R = g ab Rab = g θθ Rθθ + g φφ Rφφ = 2
+ 2 = 2 (26)
r 2
r sin θ r
The curvature scalar above tells you that: the larger the radius, the closer the
curvature approaches zero, or the flatter the local surface will be at each point.
After all this is a result of parallel transport method!

Finally if you think you have understood this procedure and you wish to
save some time and prefer to work with a single simple formula to obtain the
curvature scalar, given the metric. Here is the thing:

Suppose you are given the diagonal metric

µ ¶
2 a b g11 0
ds = gab dx dx ⇒ gab = (27)
0 g22

The formula for the curvature scalar will be

· µ ¶ µ ¶¸
1 1 1
R = √ ∂1 √ ∂1 g22 + ∂2 √ ∂2 g11 (28)
g g g
√ √
where g= detg. And this’s it, folks!

Have a good time!

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