Advanced General Relativity: Problem Sheet 1
1. The energy momentum tensor of a stationary point particle of mass M at the
origin is
T00 = mc2 δ 3 (x) , Ti0 = Tij = 0 .
In the rest of the question you can set c = 1.
a) Write the four velocity of the particle uµ = dxµ /dτ where τ is the affine pa-
rameter along the world-line of the particle (which as stated is stationary).
b) Express T µν in terms of uµ .
c) Now assume the particle is not stationary, but has a constant velocity. What
is uµ and what would that give for T µν .
d) Can you get this answer by acting on the original T µν by a Lorentz transfor-
mation?
e) Now assume you have a uniform density of particles in some region. If they are
all stationary, What is the average energy momentum tensor in that region.
f) Finally, assume all particles have fixed velocity, but in an arbitrary direction.
What is T µν in that case?
For simplicity you can solve the question in a 2-dimensional spacetime.
2. Hard problem: Download Mathematica and get it to work....
3. Write a code where in the first line you define the metric as a matrix. For example
for S 2
coords = {Theta,Phi};
metric={{1,0},{0,Sin[Theta]^2}};
Then the code calculates Γ and the different R’s.
You may need to use the commands:
• Length[xxx] gives the length of the vector xxx.
• Inverse[matrix]
• D[f[x],x] (for derivative),
• Table[f[n],n,1,10] creates a length n vector. With two iterators it will
make a matrix, etc.
• Sum[a[[n,n]],n,1,10] where a[[n,n]] is the (n,n) entry in a matrix. This
sum calculate the trace of a 10d matrix.
If you are not experienced with Mathematica, you can look at the hint file on the
keats page.
There are other ways to program this not relying on Table, but on functions and
so on. You can try to be creative.
4. For Minkowski space in spherical coordinates ds2 = −dt2 +dr 2 +r 2 dθ2 +r 2 sin2 θ dφ2 ,
how many nonzero components are there to the Levi-Civita tensor?
You may rely on mathematica or do it by hand or both.