Levi-Civita Connection - Christoffel Symbols

Christoffel Symbols

Let ∇ be the connection of the Riemannian metric. Choose local coordinates and let be the Christoffel symbols with respect to these coordinates. The torsion freeness condition 2 is then equivalent to the symmetry

The definition of the Levi-Civita connection derived above is equivalent to a definition of the Christoffel symbols in terms of the metric as

where as usual are the coefficients of the dual metric tensor, i.e. the entries of the inverse of the matrix .