Let be a vector field in . An integral curve of is a curve in , whose tangent vector at is . Given a chart , this means

where is the th component of and . Note the abuse of the notation: is used to denote a point in as well as its coordinates. [For later convenience we assume the point is included in .] Put in another way, finding the integral curve of a vector field is equivalent to solving the autonomous system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) (5.39). The initial condition corresponds to the coordinates of an integral curve at . The existence and uniqueness theorem of ODEs guarantees that there is a unique solution to (5.39), at least locally, with the initial data . It may happen that the integral curve is defined only on a subset of , in which case we have to pay attention so that the parameter does not exceed the given interval. In the following we assume that is maximally extended. It is known that if is a compact manifold, the integral curve exists for all .

Let be an integral curve of which passes a point at and denote the coordinate by . Equation (5.39) then becomes

with the initial condition

The map is called a flow generated by . A flow satisfies the rule

for any such that both sides of (5.41) make sense. This can be seen from the uniqueness of ODEs. In fact, we note that

and

Thus, both sides of (5.41) satisfy the same ODE and the same initial condition. From the uniqueness of the solution, they should be the same. We have obtained the following theorem.

For any point , there exists a differentiable map such that

(i)
(ii) is a solution of (5.40a) and (5.40b); and

[Note: We denote the initial point by instead of to emphasize that is a map .]

We may imagine a flow as a (steady) stream flow. If a particle is observed at a point at , it will be found at at later time .

Let and let be a vector field in . It is easy to verify that

is a flow generated by . The flow through is a circle whose centre is at the origin. Clearly, if , . If , the flow stays at .

Let , and let be a vector field in . Find the flow generated by .

5.3.1 One-parameter group of transformations

For fixed , a flow is a diffeomorphism from to , denoted by . It is important to note that is made into a commutative group by the following rules.

(i) , that is, ;
(ii) the identity map ; and
(iii) .

This group is called the one-parameter group of transformations. The group locally looks like the additive group , although it may not be isomorphic to globally. In fact, in example 5.9, was the same map as and we find that the one-parameter group is isomorphic to SO(2), the multiplicative group of real matrices of the form

or , the multiplicative group of complex numbers of unit modulus .

Under the action of , with an infinitesimal , we find from (5.40a) and (5.40b) that a point whose coordinate is is mapped to

The vector field is called, in this context, the infinitesimal generator of the transformation .

Given a vector field , the corresponding flow is often referred to as the exponentiation of and is denoted by

The name ‘exponentiation’ is justified as we shall see now. Let us take a parameter and evaluate the coordinate of a point which is separated from the initial point by the parameter distance along the flow . The coordinate corresponding to the point is

The last expression can also be written as , as in (5.43). The flow satisfies the following exponential properties.

(i) (5.45a)

(ii) (5.45b)

(iii)

5.3.2 Lie derivatives

Let and be two flows generated by the vector fields and ,

Let us evaluate the change of the vector field along . To do this, we have to compare the vector at a point with that at a nearby point , see figure 5.12. However, we cannot simply take the difference between the components of at two points since they belong to different tangent spaces and ; the naive difference between vectors at different points is ill defined. To define a sensible derivative, we first map to by , after which we take a difference between two vectors and , both of which are vectors in . The Lie derivative of a vector field along the flow of is defined by

Figure 5.12. To compare a vector with , the latter must be transported back to by the differential map .

Show that is also written as

Let be a chart with the coordinates and let and be vector fields defined on . Then has the coordinates and

where is the coordinate basis and . If we map this vector defined at to by , we obtain

From (5.47) and (5.48), we find that

Let and be vector fields in . Define the Lie bracket by

where . Show that is a vector field given by

This exercise shows that the Lie derivative of along is

[Remarks: Note that neither nor is a vector field since they are second-order derivatives. The combination is, however, a first-order derivative and indeed a vector field.]

Show that the Lie bracket satisfies

(a) bilinearity

for any constants and ,

(b) skew-symmetry

(c) the Jacobi identity

(a) Let and . Show that

(b) Let and . Show that

Geometrically, the Lie bracket shows the non-commutativity of two flows. This is easily observed from the following consideration. Let and be two flows generated by vector fields and , as before, see figure 5.13. If we move by a small parameter distance along the flow first, then by along , we shall be at the point whose coordinates are

Figure 5.13. A Lie bracket measures the failure of the closure of the parallelogram.

If, however, we move by along first, then by along , we will be at the point

The difference between the coordinates of these two points is proportional to the Lie bracket,

The Lie bracket of and measures the failure of the closure of the parallelogram in figure 5.13. It is easy to see if and only if

We may also define the Lie derivative of a one-form along by

where is at . Put . Repeating a similar analysis as before, we obtain

which leads to

Clearly , since it is a difference of two one-forms at the same point .

The Lie derivative of along a flow generated by a vector field is

which is the usual directional derivative of along .

The Lie derivative of a general tensor is obtained from the following proposition.

The Lie derivative satisfies

where and are tensor fields of the same type and

where and are tensor fields of arbitrary types.

Proof

(a) is obvious. Rather than giving the general proof of (b), which is full of indices, we give an example whose extension to more general cases is trivial. Take and and construct the tensor product . Then is mapped onto a tensor at by the action of :

Then there follows (the Leibnitz rule):

Extensions to more general cases are obvious.

This proposition enables us to calculate the Lie derivative of a general tensor field. For example, let . Proposition 5.1 gives

Let be a tensor field. Show that

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