In geometry, a geodesic is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path (arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. It is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line".
In the mathematical field of differential geometry, the Riemann curvature tensor or Riemann–Christoffel tensor is the most common way used to express the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. It assigns a tensor to each point of a Riemannian manifold. It is a local invariant of Riemannian metrics which measures the failure of the second covariant derivatives to commute. A Riemannian manifold has zero curvature if and only if it is flat, i.e. locally isometric to the Euclidean space. The curvature tensor can also be defined for any pseudo-Riemannian manifold, or indeed any manifold equipped with an affine connection.
In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold or Riemannian space(M, g), so called after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is a real, smooth manifold M equipped with a positive-definite inner product gp on the tangent space TpM at each point p.
In Riemannian geometry, an exponential map is a map from a subset of a tangent space TpM of a Riemannian manifold M to M itself. The (pseudo) Riemannian metric determines a canonical affine connection, and the exponential map of the (pseudo) Riemannian manifold is given by the exponential map of this connection.
In differential geometry, the Ricci curvature tensor, named after Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, is a geometric object which is determined by a choice of Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian metric on a manifold. It can be considered, broadly, as a measure of the degree to which the geometry of a given metric tensor differs locally from that of ordinary Euclidean space or pseudo-Euclidean space.
In geometry, parallel transport is a way of transporting geometrical data along smooth curves in a manifold. If the manifold is equipped with an affine connection, then this connection allows one to transport vectors of the manifold along curves so that they stay parallel with respect to the connection.
In Riemannian geometry, the sectional curvature is one of the ways to describe the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. The sectional curvature K(σp) depends on a two-dimensional linear subspace σp of the tangent space at a point p of the manifold. It can be defined geometrically as the Gaussian curvature of the surface which has the plane σp as a tangent plane at p, obtained from geodesics which start at p in the directions of σp. The sectional curvature is a real-valued function on the 2-Grassmannian bundle over the manifold.
In the mathematical field of Riemannian geometry, the scalar curvature is a measure of the curvature of a Riemannian manifold. To each point on a Riemannian manifold, it assigns a single real number determined by the geometry of the metric near that point. It is defined by a complicated explicit formula in terms of partial derivatives of the metric components, although it is also characterized by the volume of infinitesimally small geodesic balls. In the context of the differential geometry of surfaces, the scalar curvature is twice the Gaussian curvature, and completely characterizes the curvature of a surface. In higher dimensions, however, the scalar curvature only represents one particular part of the Riemann curvature tensor.
In mathematics, particularly differential geometry, a Finsler manifold is a differentiable manifold M where a Minkowski functionalF(x, −) is provided on each tangent space TxM, that enables one to define the length of any smooth curve γ : [a, b] → M as
In the mathematical study of metric spaces, one can consider the arclength of paths in the space. If two points are at a given distance from each other, it is natural to expect that one should be able to get from the first point to the second along a path whose arclength is equal to that distance. The distance between two points of a metric space relative to the intrinsic metric is defined as the infimum of the lengths of all paths from the first point to the second. A metric space is a length metric space if the intrinsic metric agrees with the original metric of the space.
In Riemannian geometry, the geodesic curvature of a curve measures how far the curve is from being a geodesic. For example, for 1D curves on a 2D surface embedded in 3D space, it is the curvature of the curve projected onto the surface's tangent plane. More generally, in a given manifold , the geodesic curvature is just the usual curvature of . However, when the curve is restricted to lie on a submanifold of , geodesic curvature refers to the curvature of in and it is different in general from the curvature of in the ambient manifold . The (ambient) curvature of depends on two factors: the curvature of the submanifold in the direction of , which depends only on the direction of the curve, and the curvature of seen in , which is a second order quantity. The relation between these is . In particular geodesics on have zero geodesic curvature, so that , which explains why they appear to be curved in ambient space whenever the submanifold is.
This is a glossary of some terms used in Riemannian geometry and metric geometry — it doesn't cover the terminology of differential topology.
In mathematics, a sub-Riemannian manifold is a certain type of generalization of a Riemannian manifold. Roughly speaking, to measure distances in a sub-Riemannian manifold, you are allowed to go only along curves tangent to so-called horizontal subspaces.
In differential geometry, normal coordinates at a point p in a differentiable manifold equipped with a symmetric affine connection are a local coordinate system in a neighborhood of p obtained by applying the exponential map to the tangent space at p. In a normal coordinate system, the Christoffel symbols of the connection vanish at the point p, thus often simplifying local calculations. In normal coordinates associated to the Levi-Civita connection of a Riemannian manifold, one can additionally arrange that the metric tensor is the Kronecker delta at the point p, and that the first partial derivatives of the metric at p vanish.
In mathematics, a space, where is a real number, is a specific type of metric space. Intuitively, triangles in a space are "slimmer" than corresponding "model triangles" in a standard space of constant curvature . In a space, the curvature is bounded from above by . A notable special case is ; complete spaces are known as "Hadamard spaces" after the French mathematician Jacques Hadamard.
In mathematics, the differential geometry of surfaces deals with the differential geometry of smooth surfaces with various additional structures, most often, a Riemannian metric. Surfaces have been extensively studied from various perspectives: extrinsically, relating to their embedding in Euclidean space and intrinsically, reflecting their properties determined solely by the distance within the surface as measured along curves on the surface. One of the fundamental concepts investigated is the Gaussian curvature, first studied in depth by Carl Friedrich Gauss, who showed that curvature was an intrinsic property of a surface, independent of its isometric embedding in Euclidean space.
In geometry, the Clifton–Pohl torus is an example of a compact Lorentzian manifold that is not geodesically complete. While every compact Riemannian manifold is also geodesically complete, this space shows that the same implication does not generalize to pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. It is named after Yeaton H. Clifton and William F. Pohl, who described it in 1962 but did not publish their result.
In the theory of Lie groups, the exponential map is a map from the Lie algebra of a Lie group to the group which allows one to recapture the local group structure from the Lie algebra. The existence of the exponential map is one of the primary reasons that Lie algebras are a useful tool for studying Lie groups.
Arithmetic Fuchsian groups are a special class of Fuchsian groups constructed using orders in quaternion algebras. They are particular instances of arithmetic groups. The prototypical example of an arithmetic Fuchsian group is the modular group . They, and the hyperbolic surface associated to their action on the hyperbolic plane often exhibit particularly regular behaviour among Fuchsian groups and hyperbolic surfaces.
In mathematics, the Cartan–Ambrose–Hicks theorem is a theorem of Riemannian geometry, according to which the Riemannian metric is locally determined by the Riemann curvature tensor, or in other words, behavior of the curvature tensor under parallel translation determines the metric.
