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In differential geometry, the Ricci curvature tensor, named after Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, represents the amount by which the volume of a geodesic ball in a curved Riemannian manifold deviates from that of the standard ball in Euclidean space. As such, it provides one way of measuring the degree to which the geometry determined by a given Riemannian metric might differ from that of ordinary Euclidean ''n''-space. The Ricci tensor is defined on any pseudo-Riemannian manifold, as a trace of the Riemann curvature tensor. Like the metric itself, the Ricci tensor is a symmetric bilinear form on the tangent space of the manifold .〔It is assumed that the manifold carries its unique Levi-Civita connection. For a general affine connection, the Ricci tensor need not be symmetric.〕 In relativity theory, the Ricci tensor is the part of the curvature of space-time that determines the degree to which matter will tend to converge or diverge in time (via the Raychaudhuri equation). It is related to the matter content of the universe by means of the Einstein field equation. In differential geometry, lower bounds on the Ricci tensor on a Riemannian manifold allow one to extract global geometric and topological information by comparison (cf. comparison theorem) with the geometry of a constant curvature space form. If the Ricci tensor satisfies the vacuum Einstein equation, then the manifold is an Einstein manifold, which have been extensively studied (cf. ). In this connection, the Ricci flow equation governs the evolution of a given metric to an Einstein metric; the precise manner in which this occurs ultimately leads to the solution of the Poincaré conjecture. ==Definition== Suppose that is an ''n''-dimensional Riemannian manifold, equipped with its Levi-Civita connection . The Riemannian curvature tensor of is the tensor defined by : on vector fields . Let denote the tangent space of ''M'' at a point ''p''. For any pair of tangent vectors and in , the Ricci tensor evaluated at is defined to be the trace of the linear map given by : In local coordinates (using the Einstein summation convention), one has : where : In terms of the Riemann curvature tensor and the Christoffel symbols, one has : 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ricci curvature」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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