EinsteinHilbert action

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The EinsteinHilbert action (also referred to as Hilbert action) in general relativity is the action that yields the Einstein field equations through the principle of least action. With the ( + + +) metric signature, the gravitational part of the action is given as[1]

where is the determinant of the metric tensor, is the Ricci scalar, and , where is the Newton's gravitational constant and is the speed of light in vacuum. The integral is taken over the whole spacetime if it converges. If it does not converge, is no longer well-defined, but a modified definition where one integrates over arbitrarily large, relatively compact domains, still yields the Einstein equation as the EulerLagrange equation of the EinsteinHilbert action. The action was first proposed by David Hilbert in 1915.

Contents
1 Discussion 2 Derivation of Einstein's field equations 2.1 Variation of the Riemann tensor, the Ricci tensor, and the Ricci scalar 2.2 Variation of the determinant 2.3 Equation of motion 3 Cosmological constant 4 See also 5 References

Discussion
The derivation of equations from an action has several advantages. First of all, it allows for easy unification of general relativity with other classical fields theories (such as Maxwell theory), which are also formulated in terms of an action. In the process the derivation from an action identifies a natural candidate for the source term coupling the metric to matter fields. Moreover, the action allows for the easy identification of conserved quantities through Noether's theorem by studying symmetries of the action. In general relativity, the action is usually assumed to be a functional of the metric (and matter fields), and the connection is given by the Levi-Civita connection. The Palatini formulation of general relativity assumes the metric and connection to be independent, and varies with respect to both independently, which makes it possible to include fermionic matter fields with non-integral spin. The Einstein equations in the presence of matter are given by adding the matter action to the HilbertEinstein action.

Derivation of Einstein's field equations

Suppose that the full action of the theory is given by the EinsteinHilbert term plus a term matter fields appearing in the theory. describing any

The action principle then tells us that the variation of this action with respect to the inverse metric is zero, yielding

Since this equation should hold for any variation

, it implies that

is the equation of motion for the metric field. The right hand side of this equation is (by definition) proportional to the stressenergy tensor,

To calculate the left hand side of the equation we need the variations of the Ricci scalar R and the determinant of the metric. These can be obtained by standard text book calculations such as the one given below, which is strongly based on the one given in Carroll 2004.

Variation of the Riemann tensor, the Ricci tensor, and the Ricci scalar
To calculate the variation of the Ricci scalar we calculate first the variation of the Riemann curvature tensor, and then the variation of the Ricci tensor. So, the Riemann curvature tensor is defined as,

Since the Riemann curvature depends only on the Levi-Civita connection can be calculated as,

, the variation of the Riemann tensor

Now, since

is the difference of two connections, it is a tensor and we can thus calculate its covariant

derivative,

We can now observe that the expression for the variation of Riemann curvature tensor above is equal to the difference of two such terms,

We may now obtain the variation of the Ricci curvature tensor simply by contracting two indices of the variation of the Riemann tensor,

The Ricci scalar is defined as

Therefore, its variation with respect to the inverse metric

is given by

In the second line we used the previously obtained result for the variation of the Ricci curvature and the metric compatibility of the covariant derivative, . The last term, , multiplied by becomes a total derivative, since

and thus by Stokes' theorem only yields a boundary term when integrated. Hence when the variation of the metric vanishes at infinity, this term does not contribute to the variation of the action. And we thus obtain,

Variation of the determinant

Jacobi's formula, the rule for differentiating a determinant, gives:

or one could transform to a coordinate system where is diagonal and then apply the product rule to differentiate the product of factors on the main diagonal. Using this we get

In the last equality we used the fact that

which follows from the rule for differentiating the inverse of a matrix

Thus we conclude that

Equation of motion
Now that we have all the necessary variations at our disposal, we can insert them into the equation of motion for the metric field to obtain,

which is Einstein's field equation and

has been chosen such that the non-relativistic limit yields the usual form of Newton's gravity law, where G is the gravitational constant (see here for details).

Cosmological constant
Sometimes, a cosmological constant is included in the Lagrangian so that the new action

yields the field equations:

See also

BelinfanteRosenfeld tensor BransDicke theory (in which the constant k is replaced by a scalar field). EinsteinCartan theory f(R) gravity (in which the Ricci scalar is replaced by a function of the Ricci cuvature) GibbonsHawkingYork boundary term Palatini action Teleparallelism Variational methods in general relativity EinsteinMaxwellDirac equations

References
1. ^ Richard P. Feynman, Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, Addison-Wesley, 1995, ISBN 0-201-62734-5, p. 136, eq. (10.1.2)

Carroll, Sean M. (2004), Spacetime and Geometry (http://spacetimeandgeometry.net), Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-8053-8732-3 Hilbert, D. (1915) Die Grundlagen der Physik (German original for free) (http://einstein-annalen.mpiwgberlin.mpg.de/related_texts/relativity_rev/hilbert) (English translation for $25) (http://www.springerlink.com/content/t2681418480nq841), Konigl. Gesell. d. Wiss. Gttingen, Nachr. Math.-Phys. Kl. 395-407 Sokolov, D.D. (2001), "Cosmological constant" (http://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php? title=C/c026670), in Hazewinkel, Michiel, Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Springer, ISBN 978-1-55608010-4 Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=EinsteinHilbert_action&oldid=551250672" Categories: Variational formalism of general relativity General relativity Albert Einstein This page was last modified on 20 April 2013 at 07:45. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.