24 Curvature and torsion on principal bundles

Usually, in more elementary treatments of differential geometry or general relativity, cur-

vature and torsion are mentioned together as properties of a covariant derivative over the
tangent or the frame bundle. Since we will soon define the notion of curvature on a general
principal bundle equipped with a connection, one might expect that there be a general
definition of torsion on a principal bundle with a connection. However, this is not the case.
Torsion requires additional structure beyond that induced by a connection. The reason why
curvature and torsion are sometimes presented together is that frame bundles are already
equipped, in a canonical way, with the extra structure required to define torsion.

24.1 Covariant exterior derivative and curvature

Definition. Let (P, , M ) be a principal G-bundle with connection one-form . Let be
a k-form (i.e. an anti-symmetric, C (P )-multilinear map) with values in some module V .
Then then exterior covariant derivative of is

D : (T P )(k+1) V
(X1 , . . . , Xk+1 ) 7 d(hor(X1 ), . . . , hor(Xk+1 )).

Definition. Let (P, , M ) be a principal G-bundle with connection one-form . The cur-
vature of the connection one-form is the Lie-algebra-valued 2-form on P

: (T P ) (T P ) Te G

defined by
:= D.

For calculational purposes, we would like to make this definition a bit more explicit.

Proposition 24.1. Let be a connection one-form and its curvature. Then

= d + (?)

with the second term on the right hand side defined as

( )(X, Y ) := J(X), (Y )K

where X, Y (T P ) and the double bracket denotes the Lie bracket on Te G.

Remark 24.2. If G is a matrix Lie group, and hence Te G is an algebra of matrices of the
same size as those of G, then we can write

ij = d ij + ik kj .

Proof. Since is C -bilinear, it suffices to consider the following three cases.

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a) Suppose that X, Y (T P ) are both vertical, that is, there exist A, B Te G such
that X = X A and Y = X B . Then the left hand side of our equation reads
(X A , X B ) := D(X A , X B )
= d(hor(X A ), hor(X B ))
= d(0, 0)
= 0
while the right hand side is
d(X A , X B ) + ( )(X A , X B ) = X A ((X B )) X B ((X A ))
([X A , X B ]) + (X A ), (X B )
q y

= X A (B) X B (A)
(X JA,BK ) + JA, BK
= JA, BK + JA, BK
= 0.
Note that we have used the fact that the map
i : Te G (T P )
A 7X A
is a Lie algebra homomorphism, and hence
X JA,BK = i(JA, BK) = [i(A), i(B)] = [X A , X B ],
where the single square brackets denote the Lie bracket on (T P ).

b) Suppose that X, Y (T P ) are both horizontal. Then we have

(X, Y ) := D(X, Y ) = d(hor(X), hor(Y )) = d(X, Y )
and
( )(X, Y ) = J(X), (Y )K = J0, 0K = 0.
Hence the equation holds in this case.

c) W.l.o.g suppose that X (T P ) is horizontal while Y = X A (T P ) is vertical.

Then the left hand side is
(X, X A ) := D(X, X A ) = d(hor(X), hor(X A )) = d(hor(X), 0) = 0.
while the right hand side gives
d(X, X A ) + ( )(X, X A ) = X((X A )) X A ((X))
([X, X A ]) + (X), (X A )
q y

= X(A) X A (0)
(X JA,BK ) + J0, AK
= ([X, X A ])
= 0,

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 where the only non-trivial step, which is left as an exercise, is to show that if X is
horizontal and Y is vertical, then [X, Y ] is again horizontal.

We would now like to relate the curvature on a principal bundle to (local) objects
on the base manifold, just like we have done for the connection one-form. Recall that a
connection one-form on a principal G-bundle (P, , M ) is a Te G-valued one-form on P .
By using the notation 1 (P ) Te G for the collection (in fact, bundle) of all Te G-valued
one-forms, we have 1 (P ) Te G. If (T U ) is a local section on M , we defined the
Yang-Mills field U 1 (U ) Te G by pulling back along .

Definition. Let (P, , M ) be a principal G-bundle and let be the curvature associated to
a connection one-form on P . Let (T U ) be a local section on M . Then, the two-form

Riem F := 2 (U ) Te G

is called the Yang-Mills field strength.

Remark 24.3. Observe that the equation = d + on P immediately gives

= (d + )

= (d) + ( )

= d( ) + .

Since Riem is a two-form, we can write

Riem = (d U ) + U U .

In the case of a matrix Lie group, by writing ij := ( U )ij , we can further express this
in components as

Riemij = ij ij + ik kj ik kj

from which we immediately observe that Riem is symmetric in the last two indices, i.e.

Riemij[] = 0.

Theorem 24.4 (First Bianchi identity). Let be the curvature two-form associated to a
connection one-form on a principal bundle. Then

D = 0.

Remark 24.5. Note that since = D, Bianchis identity can be rewritten as D2 = 0.

However, unlike the exterior derivative d, the covariant exterior derivative does not satisfy
D2 = 0 in general.

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24.2 Torsion
Definition. Let (P, , M ) be a principal G-bundle and let V be the representation space
of a linear (dim M )-dimensional representation of the Lie group G. A solder(ing) form on
P is a one-form 1 (P ) V such that

(i) X (T P ) : (ver(X)) = 0;

(ii) g G : g B ((C g) ) = ;

(iii) T M and PV are isomorphic as associated bundles.

A solder form provides an identification of V with each tangent space of M .

Example 24.6. Consider the frame bundle (LM, , M ) and define

: (T (LM )) Rdim M
X 7 (u1
(X) )(X)

where for each e := (e1 , . . . , edim M ) LM , ue is defined as

ue : Rdim M
T(e) M
(x1 , . . . , xdim M ) 7 xi ei .

To describe the inverse map u1 e explicitly, note that to every frame (e1 , . . . , edim M ) LM ,
there exists a co-frame (f 1 , . . . , f dim M ) L M such that

u1 Rdim M
e : T(e) M
Z 7 (f 1 (Z), . . . , f dim M (Z)).

Definition. Let (P, , M ) be a principal G-bundle with connection one-form and let
1 (P ) V be a solder form on P . Then

:= D 2 (P ) V

is the torsion of with respect to .

Remark 24.7. You can now see that the extra structure required to define the torsion is
a choice of solder form. The previous example shows that there a canonical choice of such
a form on any frame bundle bundle.
We would like to have a similar formula for as we had for . However, since and
are both V -valued but is Te G-valued, the term would be meaningless. What we
have, instead, is the following
= d + ,
where the half-double wedge symbol intuitively indicates that we let act on . More
precisely, in the case of a matrix Lie group, recalling that dim G = dim Te G = dim V , we
have
i = di + ik k .

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Theorem 24.8 (Second Bianchi identity). Let be the torsion of a connection one-form
with respect to a solder form on a principal bundle. Then

D = .

Remark 24.9. Like connection one-forms and curvatures two-forms, a torsion two-form
can also be pulled back to the base manifold along a local section as T := . In fact,
this is the torsion that one typically meets in general relativity.