COMPONENTS OF ONE-FORMS AND VECTORS

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Post date: 24 Jan 2021.
A one-form is a tensor written 01 which takes a single vector as input


and produces a number as output. All tensors are entities that exist inde-
pendently of any frame of reference, but the components of a tensor do
depend on the reference frame. If a frame has as its basis vectors e α , then
the components of a tensor are found by inserting these basis vectors into
the tensor’s slots. We write the basis one-forms as ω α where the α runs
from 0 to 3, and denotes which basis one-form we’re referring to, and not
to the components of any one-form.
Thus the basis one-forms satisfy

ω α e β = ω α , e β = δ αβ


(1)
A one-form can then be written in terms of its components and basis
one-forms as

σ = σα ω α (2)
Here, σα is the αth component of σ and ω α is the αth basis one-form. Bold
faced symbols always refer to entire vectors or one-forms, while regular
symbols with superscripts or subscripts refer to components.
Remembering that the expression

hσ
σ, v i (3)
is interpreted as the number of surfaces of the one-form σ that are pierced
by the vector v , we can find how many surfaces of some one-form σ are
pierced by the basis vector e β :

σ , e β = σα ω α , e β (4)
= σα ω α , e β (5)
= σα δ αβ (6)
= σβ (7)
1
 COMPONENTS OF ONE-FORMS AND VECTORS 2

The second line follows from the linearity of one-forms and the third line
from 1. Thus the inner product σ , e β of a one-form with a basis vector
picks out the corresponding component of the one-form.
We can do a similar calculation to find the the number of surfaces of the
basis one-form ω α that are pierced by an arbitrary vector v .

D E
ω α, v i = ω α, vβ eβ
hω (8)
= vβ ω α, eβ (9)
= v β δ αβ (10)
= vα (11)
ω α , v i of a vector with a basis one-form picks out
Thus the inner product hω
the corresponding component of the vector.
Note that the components of one-forms have subscripts to label them,
while the components of vectors have superscripts. If we combine 7 and 10
we find

D E
σ , v i = σα ω α , v β e β
hσ (12)
= σα v β ω α , e β (13)
= σα v β δ αβ (14)
α
= σα v (15)
This is just another way of writing the scalar product of the vector corre-
sponding to the one-form σ with the vector v .
The scalar product of two vectors u and v can be written in terms of the
flat space metric ηαβ as

u · v = uα v β ηαβ (16)
Since the one-form ũu corresponding to the vector u satisfies 15 (with σ
replaced by u ), we have

uβ v β = uα v β ηαβ (17)
Since this must be true for all vectors v , we must have

uβ = uα ηαβ (18)
The metric used in MTW is
 COMPONENTS OF ONE-FORMS AND VECTORS 3

η00 = −1
(19)
ηii = +1
with all other elements being zero. Therefore we can get the components of
a one-form from the components of the corresponding vector:

u0 = −u0
(20)
ui = ui
Since the metric ηαβ multiplied by itself gives the unit matrix, ηαβ is its
own inverse. That is
−1
η αβ = ηαβ = ηαβ (21)
where the notation ηαβ means ’the matrix with elements ηαβ . We can
therefore multiply 18 by η βγ to get

uβ η βγ = uα ηαβ η βγ (22)
α γ
=u δ α (23)
γ
=u (24)
That is, we can use the inverse metric to raise an index to recover a vector’s
component from the components of its corresponding one-form.
Finally, we see there are several ways to write the scalar product of two
vectors u and v . One way is given in 15:

u, v i = uα v α
u · v = hu (25)
Using 18 and 24 we can raise or lower the index on one of the vector com-
ponents to get

u · v = uα vβ η αβ = uα v β ηαβ (26)
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