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Can we symbolically derive geodesic equation for a given metric using its Christoffel symbols?

asked 2024-12-06 11:23:11 +0100

AKGSage gravatar image

As the title says, I have defined a manifold and its metric and the coordinates. I have also gotten the Christoffel symbols using christoffel_symbols(). But I cannot seem to find a way to derive the geodesic equations for this system. I'm not sure how to define the affine parameter and I cannot make the derivative operator work on symbolic functions of the coordinates and the Christoffel symbol components.

Is there a way to do this for any given well defined metric? Any help would be great. Cheers!

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it would help if you write the code you have in a concrete small case.

FrédéricC gravatar imageFrédéricC ( 2024-12-06 15:23:20 +0100 )edit
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The page https://sagemanifolds.obspm.fr/exampl... has some examples on geodesics.

tolga gravatar imagetolga ( 2024-12-06 17:37:29 +0100 )edit

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answered 2024-12-06 18:12:46 +0100

eric_g gravatar image

You can use the method system of class IntegratedGeodesic. For instance, the following code displays the geodesic equation for the round metric of the 2-sphere in polar coordinates $(\theta,\phi)$:

sage: M = manifolds.Sphere(2)
sage: p = M.point((pi/2, pi))
sage: v0 = M.vector(p, (1, 1))
sage: lbda = var('lbda', latex_name=r'\lambda')
sage: C = M.integrated_geodesic(M.metric(), (lbda, 0, 1), v0)
sage: C.system()[0]
[Dphi^2*cos(theta)*sin(theta), -2*Dphi*Dtheta*cos(theta)/sin(theta)]

The two items in the output list are the values of $\ddot\theta$ and $\ddot\phi$, with Dtheta standing for $\dot\theta$ and Dphi standing for $\dot\phi$ and the dot denotes the derivative with respect to the geodesic parameter $\lambda$.

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Yes Prof.Eric !! That works, thanks a lot for explaining the technicalities that are very challenging for a beginner to find.

AKGSage gravatar imageAKGSage ( 2024-12-11 17:09:02 +0100 )edit

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Asked: 2024-12-06 11:23:11 +0100

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Last updated: Dec 06