Tuesday, January 14, 2020

homework and exercises - Infinitesimal Lorentz transformation is antisymmetric


The Minkowski metric transforms under Lorentz transformations as


ηρσ=ημνΛμ   ρΛν   σ


I want to show that under a infinitesimal transformation Λμ   ν=δμ   ν+ωμ   ν, that ωμν=ωνμ.


I tried expanding myself: ηρσ=ημν(δμ   ρ+ωμ   ρ)(δν   σ+ων   σ)=(δνρ+ωνρ)(δν   σ+ων   σ)=δρσ+ωρ   σ+ωσρ+ωνρων   σ


Been a long time since I've dealt with tensors so I don't know how to proceed.



Answer



Note that if you lower an index of the Kronecker delta, it becomes the metric:


ημνδμρ=δνρ=ηνρ



And in your last step you got a wrong index. It should be ωρσ, not ωρσ.


Then, the metric terms cancel and you neglect cuadratic terms.


That should be enough to solve it.


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