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Consider the following metric:

$$\mathrm{d} s^{2}=-\left(1-\frac{2 m}{r}\right) \mathrm{d} t^{2}+\left(1+\frac{2 m}{r}\right)\left(\mathrm{d} r^{2}+r^{2} \mathrm{~d} \Omega^{2}\right)-\frac{4 j \sin ^{2} \theta}{r} \mathrm{~d} t \mathrm{~d} \phi.$$

I am trying to compute the extrinsic curvature of hypersurfaces of constant $t$. The coordinates on the spacetime manifold are $x^{\alpha} = (t,r, \theta, \phi)$, and take the coordinates on the hypersurface to be $y^{a} = (r, \theta, \phi)$.

The normal to the hypersurfaces is

$n_{\alpha} = -(1-m / r) \partial_{\alpha} t$. The extrinsic curvature is give by (after the pull-back):

$K_{ab} = n_{\alpha ; \beta} e_{a}^{\alpha} e_{b}^{\beta}$, where $e_{a}^{\alpha} = \frac{\partial x^{\alpha}}{\partial x^{a}}$.

When I try and go through the computation I keep getting zero, since the only non-zero component of $n_{\alpha}$ is $n_{t}$ but $e_{a}^{t} = 0$. I am not sure where I am going wrong, any help or insight is very much appreciated.

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  • $\begingroup$ I was under the impression that $e^{\alpha}_a$ is the components of the one-form basis. The vierbeine components, right? $\endgroup$
    – user172341
    Commented Jan 3, 2022 at 22:17
  • $\begingroup$ @ DiSp0sablE_H3r0 The $e^{\alpha}_{a}$ are just a short hand notation for $\frac{\partial x^{\alpha}}{\partial x^{a}}$. Sorry for the confusion. $\endgroup$
    – Joel
    Commented Jan 5, 2022 at 12:53

1 Answer 1

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The problem here is with assuming that because $n_{\alpha}\sim \delta_{t\alpha}$, then the $n_{\alpha;\beta}$ will also vanish for $\alpha \neq t$. This is not true. Even though a field might have only some component, it does not mean that its covariant derivative does not have any other components.

Let us see, what hides behind the $n_{\alpha;\beta}$. In semicolon notation, we have to be careful and remember that we first take the covariant derivative of the tensor field in the $\frac{\partial}{\partial x^{\beta}}$ direction, and only then evaluate its $\alpha$-th component. Therefore: $$n_{\alpha;\beta}\equiv(\nabla_{\beta}n)_{\alpha}$$

where the parentheses serve to indicate the order of operations. It's analogous to how we first differentiate a function and then take its value at a point. In the opposite order, we'd always get zero, like you're getting here!

I encourage you to try and calculate the covariant derivative for $\beta=(t,r,\theta,\varphi)$ like this:

$$\nabla_{\beta}n = \Big{[} \frac{\partial n_{\alpha}}{\partial x^{\beta}} - \Gamma_{\beta \alpha}^{\lambda}n_{\lambda} \Big{]}dx^{\alpha}.$$

And then read off the relevant entries $(\nabla_{\beta}n)_{\alpha}$ of the one-form field $\nabla_{\beta}n$ .

Alternatively, since you already have $n$, we can do it like this:

$$ \nabla_{\beta}n = \nabla_{\beta}(n_{t}dt) = \nabla_{\beta}(n_{t})dt+ n_{t}\nabla_{\beta}dt = \partial_{\beta}n_{t}dt - n_{t}\Gamma_{\beta \lambda}^{t}dx^{\lambda} $$

where we used, accordingly, the Leibniz rule and the fact that on functions, the covariant derivative reduces to a partial derivative, and we know its actions on coordinate one-forms and coordinate basis vector fields.

Second problem I see is that in the question's body, you normalized incorrectly the one-form $n$. You should use the $g^{tt}$ that's given below.

For $n_{\alpha}$, I am getting:

$$ n = -\frac{\sqrt{2m+r}}{(2mr+r^{2})\sqrt{r}}\sqrt{4j^{2}\sin(\theta)^{2} +r^{4} -4m^{2}r^{2}} \;dt$$

After an edit, the answer below can be now treated as illustrating an alternative way of calculating the extrinsic curvature tensor:

I allowed myself the liberty to run calculations partly through SageMath. $$g_{\mu\nu} = \begin{bmatrix} -(1-\frac{2M}{r}) & 0 & 0 & \frac{-2j\sin^{2}\theta}{r} \\ 0 & 1+\frac{2M}{r} & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & r^{2}(1+\frac{2M}{r}) & 0\\ \frac{-2j\sin^{2}\theta}{r} & 0& 0& r^{2}(1+\frac{2M}{r})\sin^{2}\theta \end{bmatrix} $$

Inverting:

$$g^{\mu\nu} = \begin{bmatrix} \frac{r^{3}(2M+r)}{4M^{2}r^{2}-r^{4}-4j^{2}\sin^{2}\theta} & 0 & 0 & \frac{2jr}{4M^{2}r^{2}-r^{4}-4j^{2}\sin^{2}\theta} \\ 0 & \frac{r}{2M+r} & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & \frac{1}{2Mr+r^{2}} & 0\\ \frac{2jr}{4M^{2}r^{2}-r^{4}-4j^{2}\sin^{2}\theta} & 0& 0& - \frac{r(2M-r)\,\sin\theta^{-2}}{4M^{2}r^{2}-r^{4} -4j^{2}\sin^{2}\theta} \end{bmatrix} $$

You can calculate the inverse easily if you treat the $t-\varphi$ block of the metric as 2-by-2 and calculate its inverse separately, and the other block to be $r-\theta$ and obtain the corresponding components of the inverse metric simply by raising the entries of that block to the power of $-1$.

Now you should calculate $n_{\mu}= At_{,\mu}$, normalize it: $g^{\mu\nu}n_{\mu}n_{\nu}=-1$ to get the scaling factor $A$ and finally, raise the index to get the normal vector field instead of the normal form.

You should get that the normal vector field has two nonvanishing components - in the $t$ and $\varphi$ coordinates.

$$ n = n^{t}\partial_{t} + n^{\varphi}\partial_{\varphi}$$

Then you can use the formula:

$$ K_{ij}= -\frac{1}{2}(\mathcal{L}_{n}\gamma)_{ij},$$ where $\mathcal{L}$ is the Lie derivative and $\gamma_{ij}$ is the induced metric on a $t=$const slice.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the input. I am defining my hypersurfaces to be given by a function of constant $t$ i.e. some function $\Phi = t-t_{0}$ where $t_{0}$ is just a constant then the hypersurfaces are just surfaces with $\Phi=0$. To find the normal to these hypersurfaces I calculate $d\Phi$ which is the gradient, hence the normal is proportional to $\partial _{\alpha}t$, this implies that when normalizing the component $g^{t \phi}$ does not contribute. Am I missing something? $\endgroup$
    – Joel
    Commented Jan 5, 2022 at 13:00
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, I have missed that, from the definition of the extrinsic curvature you provided it indeed seems you need the normal one-form and not the normal vector field. I'll look into that in a while. $\endgroup$
    – K.T.
    Commented Jan 5, 2022 at 13:30
  • $\begingroup$ Where does your definition of the extrinsic curvature appear? $\endgroup$
    – K.T.
    Commented Jan 5, 2022 at 14:13
  • $\begingroup$ It is the definition used in the book by Eric Poisson (a relativist's toolkit). But I did check that both definitiona are equivalent. $\endgroup$
    – Joel
    Commented Jan 5, 2022 at 16:53
  • $\begingroup$ I updated the answer. I believe I have found the culprit now, hiding right in front of the eyes of both of us. $\endgroup$
    – K.T.
    Commented Jan 5, 2022 at 19:06

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