I have been reading up on the permutation tensor, and have come across the following expression (in 'Generalized Calculus with Applications to Matter and Forces' by L.M.B.C Campos page 709): ei1,…,in=ei1,…,in={0if repeated indices1if (i1,…,in) is an even permutation−1if (i1,…,in) is an odd permutation
However when I try and prove that:
ei1,…,in=ei1,…,in
I instead get:
ei1,…,in=det(g)ei1,…,in
why is there a difference between my result and that given above? Is it to do with the way
ei1,…,in has been defined?
My working ei1,…,in=∑σgiσ(1)i1…giσ(n)ineiσ(1)…iσ(n)
where the summation is over all permutations,
σ, of
(1,…,n) ei1...in=ei1...in∑σsgn(σ)giσ(1)i1…giσ(n)in=det(g)ei1,…,in
The symbol defined as ei1i2…in=ei1i2…in={0if repeated indices1if even permutation−1if odd permutation
is indeed not a tensor. It is called the Levi-Civita symbol (and is a pseudo-tensor density), but we can turn it into a
pseudo-tensor, by defining the Levi-Civita tensor
ϵi1i2…in≡√|det(g)|ei1i2…in,ϵi1i2…in≡1√|det(g)|ei1i2…in.
Since you have already found how the symbol reacts to index lowering, you can immediately verify that
gi1j1gi2j2⋯ginjnϵj1j2…jn=(−1)sϵi1i2…in,
where
s is the number of negatives in the metric signature. The
(−1)s-factor is why we call it a pseudo-tensor. Note that the definition carries two consequences:
ϵi1i2…inϵj1j2…jn=ei1i2…inej1j2…jn,
and crucially, under some frame transformation
Λℓk we have
Λj1i1Λj2i2⋯Λjninϵj1j2…jn=sgn(Λ)√|det(Λ2g)|ei1i2…in=sgn(Λ)˜ϵi1i2…in,
where
˜ϵi1i2…in is the Levi-Civita tensor of the transformed frame, and
sgn(Λ) is the sign of the determinant. We can also consider this the reason to call it a pseudo-tensor, since both the
(−1)s factor and the
sgn(Λ) factor are consequences of the same property. In particular, note that
(−1)s=sgn(g).
A finaly word of caution: in the literature it is common to use ϵ or ε for either the symbol or the tensor, and sometimes the other for the other, and sometimes without clarifying which one is used. In such cases it can typically be inferred from the context.
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