Geodesic

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A geodesic triangle on the sphere. The geodesics are great circlearcs.
In mathematics, particularly differential geometry, a geodesic (/didizk/ J EE-o-DEE-
zik or /didsk/ J EE-o-DES-ik) is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line" to "curved
spaces". In the presence of an affine connection, a geodesic is defined to be a curve whose tangent
vectors remain parallel if they are transported along it. If this connection is the Levi-Civita
connection induced by a Riemannian metric, then the geodesics are (locally) the shortest path
between points in the space.
The term "geodesic" comes from geodesy, the science of measuring the size and shape of Earth; in
the original sense, a geodesic was the shortest route between two points on the Earth's surface,
namely, a segment of a great circle. The term has been generalized to include measurements in
much more general mathematical spaces; for example, in graph theory, one might consider a
geodesic between two vertices/nodes of a graph.
Geodesics are of particular importance in general relativity. Geodesics in general relativity describe
the motion of inertial test particles.
Contents
[hide]
1 Introduction
o 1.1 Examples
2 Metric geometry
3 Riemannian geometry
o 3.1 Calculus of variations
4 Affine geodesics
o 4.1 Existence and uniqueness
o 4.2 Geodesic flow
o 4.3 Geodesic spray
o 4.4 Affine and projective geodesics
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
Introduction[edit]
The shortest path between two points in a curved space can be found by writing the equation for the
length of a curve (a function f from an open interval of R to the manifold), and then minimizing this
length using the calculus of variations. This has some minor technical problems, because there is an
infinite dimensional space of different ways to parameterize the shortest path. It is simpler to
demand not only that the curve locally minimize length but also that it is parameterized "with
constant velocity", meaning that the distance from f(s) to f(t) along the geodesic is proportional to
|st|. Equivalently, a different quantity may be defined, termed the energy of the curve; minimizing
the energy leads to the same equations for a geodesic (here "constant velocity" is a consequence of
minimisation). Intuitively, one can understand this second formulation by noting that an elastic
band stretched between two points will contract its length, and in so doing will minimize its energy.
The resulting shape of the band is a geodesic.
In Riemannian geometry geodesics are not the same as "shortest curves" between two points,
though the two concepts are closely related. The difference is that geodesics are only locally the
shortest distance between points, and are parameterized with "constant velocity". Going the "long
way round" on a great circle between two points on a sphere is a geodesic but not the shortest path
between the points. The map t t
2
from the unit interval to itself gives the shortest path between 0
and 1, but is not a geodesic because the velocity of the corresponding motion of a point is not
constant.
Geodesics are commonly seen in the study of Riemannian geometry and more generally metric
geometry. In general relativity, geodesics describe the motion of point particlesunder the influence of
gravity alone. In particular, the path taken by a falling rock, an orbiting satellite, or the shape of
a planetary orbit are all geodesics in curved space-time. More generally, the topic of sub-
Riemannian geometry deals with the paths that objects may take when they are not free, and their
movement is constrained in various ways.
This article presents the mathematical formalism involved in defining, finding, and proving the
existence of geodesics, in the case of Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. The
article geodesic (general relativity) discusses the special case of general relativity in greater detail.
Examples[edit]


A geodesic on a triaxial ellipsoid.
The most familiar examples are the straight lines in Euclidean geometry. On a sphere, the images of
geodesics are the great circles. The shortest path from point A to point B on a sphere is given by the
shorter arc of the great circle passing through A and B. If A and B areantipodal points (like the North
Pole and the South Pole), then there are infinitely many shortest paths between them. Geodesics on
an ellipsoid behave in a more complicated way than on a sphere; in particular, they are not closed in
general (see figure).
Metric geometry[edit]
In metric geometry, a geodesic is a curve which is everywhere locally a distance minimizer. More
precisely, a curve : I M from an interval Iof the reals to the metric space M is a geodesic if there
is a constant v 0 such that for any t I there is a neighborhood J of t in I such that for
any t
1
,t
2
J we have

This generalizes the notion of geodesic for Riemannian manifolds. However, in metric geometry
the geodesic considered is often equipped with natural parameterization, i.e. in the above
identity v = 1 and

If the last equality is satisfied for all t
1
, t
2
I, the geodesic is called a minimizing
geodesic or shortest path.
In general, a metric space may have no geodesics, except constant curves. At the other
extreme, any two points in a length metric space are joined by a minimizing sequence
ofrectifiable paths, although this minimizing sequence need not converge to a geodesic.
Riemannian geometry[edit]
In a Riemannian manifold M with metric tensor g, the length of a continuously differentiable
curve : [a,b] M is defined by

The distance d(p,q) between two points p and q of M is defined as the infimum of the
length taken over all continuous, piecewise continuously differentiable curves
: [a,b] Msuch that (a) = p and (b) = q. With this definition of distance, geodesics in
a Riemannian manifold are then the locally distance-minimizing paths.
The minimizing curves of L in a small enough open set of M can be obtained by
techniques of calculus of variations. Typically, one introduces the
following action or energy functional

It is then enough to minimize the functional E, owing to the CauchySchwarz
inequality

with equality if and only if |d/dt| is constant.
The EulerLagrange equations of motion for the functional E are then given in
local coordinates by

where are the Christoffel symbols of the metric. This is the geodesic
equation, discussed below.
Calculus of variations[edit]
Techniques of the classical calculus of variations can be applied to examine
the energy functional E. The first variation of energy is defined in local
coordinates by

The critical points of the first variation are precisely the geodesics.
The second variation is defined by

In an appropriate sense, zeros of the second variation along a
geodesic arise along Jacobi fields. Jacobi fields are thus
regarded as variations through geodesics.
By applying variational techniques from classical mechanics, one
can also regard geodesics as Hamiltonian flows. They are solutions
of the associated HamiltonJacobi equations, with (pseudo-
)Riemannian metric taken as Hamiltonian.
Affine geodesics[edit]
See also: Geodesics in general relativity
A geodesic on a smooth manifold M with an affine connection is
defined as a curve (t) such that parallel transport along the curve
preserves the tangent vector to the curve, so





(
1
)
at each point along the curve, where is the derivative with
respect to . More precisely, in order to define the covariant
derivative of it is necessary first to extend to a
continuously differentiable vector field in an open set. However,
the resulting value of (1) is independent of the choice of
extension.
Using local coordinates on M, we can write the geodesic
equation (using the summation convention) as

where are the coordinates of the curve
(t) and are the Christoffel symbols of the connection
. This is just an ordinary differential equation for the
coordinates. It has a unique solution, given an initial
position and an initial velocity. Therefore, from the point of
view of classical mechanics, geodesics can be thought of
as trajectories of free particles in a manifold. Indeed, the
equation means that the acceleration of the
curve has no components in the direction of the surface
(and therefore it is perpendicular to the tangent plane of
the surface at each point of the curve). So, the motion is
completely determined by the bending of the surface. This
is also the idea of general relativity where particles move
on geodesics and the bending is caused by the gravity.
Existence and uniqueness[edit]
The local existence and uniqueness theorem for geodesics
states that geodesics on a smooth manifold with an affine
connection exist, and are unique. More precisely:
For any point p in M and for any vector V in T
p
M (the tangent space to M at p) there exists a
unique geodesic : I M such that
and
,
where I is a maximal open interval in R containing 0.
In general, I may not be all of R as for example for
an open disc in R
2
. The proof of this theorem
follows from the theory of ordinary differential
equations, by noticing that the geodesic equation
is a second-order ODE. Existence and uniqueness
then follow from the PicardLindelf theorem for
the solutions of ODEs with prescribed initial
conditions. depends smoothly on both p and V.
Geodesic flow[edit]
Geodesic flow is a local R-action on tangent
bundle TM of a manifold M defined in the following
way

where t R, V TM and denotes the
geodesic with initial data .
Thus, G
t
(V) = exp(tV) is the exponential
map of the vector tV. A closed orbit of the
geodesic flow corresponds to a closed
geodesic on M.
On a (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold, the
geodesic flow is identified with a Hamiltonian
flow on the cotangent bundle.
The Hamiltonian is then given by the inverse of
the (pseudo-)Riemannian metric, evaluated
against the canonical one-form. In particular
the flow preserves the (pseudo-)Riemannian
metric , i.e.
.
In particular, when V is a unit
vector, remains unit speed throughout,
so the geodesic flow is tangent to the unit
tangent bundle. Liouville's theorem implies
invariance of a kinematic measure on the
unit tangent bundle.
Geodesic spray[edit]
The geodesic flow defines a family of
curves in the tangent bundle. The
derivatives of these curves define a vector
field on the total space of the tangent
bundle, known as thegeodesic spray.
More precisely, an affine connection gives
rise to a splitting of the double tangent
bundle TTM into horizontal and vertical
bundles:

The geodesic spray is the unique
horizontal vector field W satisfying

at each point v TM; here
: TTM TM denotes
the pushforward
(differential) along the projection
: TM M associated to the
tangent bundle.
More generally, the same
construction allows one to
construct a vector field for
any Ehresmann connection on the
tangent bundle. For the resulting
vector field to be a spray (on the
deleted tangent bundle TM \ {0}) it
is enough that the connection be
equivariant under positive
rescalings: it need not be linear.
That is, (cf. Ehresmann
connection#Vector bundles and
covariant derivatives) it is enough
that the horizontal distribution
satisfy

for every X TM \ {0} and
> 0. Here d(S

) is
the pushforward along the
scalar
homothety
A particular case of a non-
linear connection arising in
this manner is that associated
to a Finsler manifold.
Affine and projective
geodesics[edit]
Equation (1) is invariant under
affine reparameterizations;
that is, parameterizations of
the form

where a and b are
constant real numbers.
Thus apart from
specifying a certain class
of embedded curves, the
geodesic equation also
determines a preferred
class of parameterizations
on each of the curves.
Accordingly, solutions of
(1) are called geodesics
with affine parameter.
An affine connection
is determined by its family
of affinely parameterized
geodesics, up
to torsion (Spivak 1999,
Chapter 6, Addendum I).
The torsion itself does
not, in fact, affect the
family of geodesics, since
the geodesic equation
depends only on the
symmetric part of the
connection. More
precisely, if are
two connections such that
the difference tensor

is skew-symmetric,
then and have
the same geodesics,
with the same affine
parameterizations.
Furthermore, there is
a unique connection
having the same
geodesics as , but
with vanishing
torsion.
Geodesics without a
particular
parameterization are
described by
a projective
connection.
See also[edit]
Basic introduction
to the
mathematics of
curved spacetime
Clairaut's relation
Closed geodesic
Complex
geodesic
Differential
geometry of
curves
Exponential map
Fermat's principle
Geodesic dome
Geodesic
(general relativity)
Geodesics as
Hamiltonian flows
HopfRinow
theorem
Intrinsic metric
Jacobi field
Quasigeodesic
Solving the
geodesic
equations
Zoll surface
Nautical chart
Rhumb
line (loxodrome)
Meridian arc