Frame Fields in General Relativity

Frame Fields In General Relativity

In general relativity, a frame field (also called a tetrad or vierbein) is a set of four orthonormal vector fields, one timelike and three spacelike, defined on a Lorentzian manifold that is physically interpreted as a model of spacetime. The timelike unit vector field is often denoted by and the three spacelike unit vector fields by . All tensorial quantities defined on the manifold can be expressed using the frame field and its dual coframe field.

Frames were introduced into general relativity by Hermann Weyl in 1929.

The general theory of tetrads (and analogs in dimensions other than 4) is described in the article on Cartan formalism; the index notation for tetrads is explained in tetrad (index notation).

Read more about Frame Fields In General Relativity:  Physical Interpretation, Specifying A Frame, Specifying The Metric Using A Coframe, Relationship With Metric Tensor, in A Coordinate Basis, Comparison With Coordinate Basis, Nonspinning and Inertial Frames, Example: Static Observers in Schwarzschild Vacuum, Example: Lemaître Observers in The Schwarzschild Vacuum, Example: Hagihara Observers in The Schwarzschild Vacuum, Generalizations

Famous quotes containing the words frame, fields, general and/or relativity:

    she drew back a while,
    Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
    With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
    Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
    Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
    Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,
    Like a dark flood suspended in its course,
    Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    I don’t know why I ever come in here. The flies get the best of everything.
    Otis Criblecoblis, U.S. screenwriter. W.C. Fields (W.C. Fields)

    It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.
    Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

    By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, to-day in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!
    Albert Einstein (1879–1955)