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The Maple 15 Differential Geometry package is the most
comprehensive mathematical software available in the area of
differential geometry, with 224 commands covering a wide range of topics
from basic jet calculus to the realm of the mathematics behind general
relativity. It includes thorough documentation including extensive
examples for all these commands, 19 differential geometry lessons
covering both beginner and advanced topics, and 5 tutorials illustrating
the use of package in applications.
Key features include being able to perform computations in
user-specified frames, inclusion of a variety of homotopy operators for
the de Rham and variational bicomplexes, algorithms for the
decomposition of Lie algebras, and functionality for the construction of
a solvable Lie group from its Lie algebra. Also included are extensive
tables of Lie algebras, Lie algebras of vectors and differential
equations taken from the mathematics and mathematical physics
literature.
The package is structured as follows:
- DifferentialGeometry contains 33
commands for working with vector fields, differential forms and related
transformations, and 6 subpackages: GroupActions, JetCalculus, Library,
LieAlgebras, Tensor and Tools.
- The GroupActions subpackage, for
working with Lie groups and infinitesimal transformations, contains 10
commands and one subpackage, MovingFrames, in turn with 2 commands.
- The JetCalculus subpackage, for working in jet spaces, in calculus of variations and with differential equations, contains 22 commands.
- The Library subpackage, for browsing and searching tables of Lie algebras and differential equations, contains 4 commands.
- The LieAlgebras subpackage, for
defining Lie algebras from a variety of sources and creating new ones,
contains 33 commands and 2 subpackages, LieAlgebraCohomology and
LieAlgebraRepresentations, with 4 and 11 commands, respectively.
- The Tensor subpackage, for
computations with tensors on the tangent bundle of any manifold or with
tensors on any vector bundle, with specialized functionality for
advanced general relativity, contains 79 commands.
- The Tools subpackage, with utility
procedures for developing new differential geometry applications,
contains 20 commands and one subpackage, DGmain, with 7 commands.
- The DifferentialGeometry lessons
provide a systematic approach to learning the commands in the
DifferentialGeometry, Tensor, LieAlgebras and JetCalculus packages. Each
lesson contains a set of exercises which range in difficulty from
simple computational exercise to programming exercises. Solutions are
given. The tutorials present specialized applications of the
DifferentialGeometry package.
With Maple 15, seventeen new commands have been introduced, most of them
supporting advanced computations in general relativity. Additionally,
there is increased functionality for many of the previously existing
commands.
Details of New DifferentialGeometry Functionality in Maple 15
- Two-component spinors and the Newman-Penrose formalism
- Powerful new commands for the 2-component spinor and
Newman-Penrose formalisms for general relativity are provided:
AdaptedNullTetrad, AdaptedSpinorDyad, FactorWeylSpinor, and
PrincipalNullDirections. Adapted null tetrads are a preferred basis of
null vectors in which the components of the curvature tensor of
space-time, expressed via the Newman-Penrose formalism, achieve a
particularly simple form. Adapted null tetrads can be used to simplify
subsequent computations and play an important role in the equivalence
problem in relativity. Likewise, the principal null directions give a
set of preferred null directions in space-time which are very important
to the study of the geometric properties of that spacetime.
- New calling sequences for NPCurvatureScalars and WeylSpinor provide added flexibility for computations with spinors.
- The classification of spacetimes depending on parameters (case-splitting) is now possible with the command PetrovType.
- Special Geometric Fields
- Special classes of vectors, tensors and spinors can now be calculated with the new commands ConformalKillingVectors,
CovariantlyConstantTensors, KillingSpinors, KillingYanoTensors, and RecurrentTensors.
- The calling sequences for the existing commands KillingTensors and KillingVectors have been extended so that all
these commands for finding special fields have a uniform syntax.
- You can specify an ansatz to use to find these special tensors.
- Case-splitting may be invoked with each command.
- New tensors and utilities
- The new NullVector, PlebanskiTensor, and TraceFreeRicciTensor provide implementations of the formulas for these tensors.
- Tests for checking principal null directions and recurrent tensor are now available with GRQuery.
- Integration of the subpackage Killing
- The subpackage Tensor[Killing] has been deprecated and the 6
commands that were contained in the Killing subpackage
[CheckKillingTensor,
IndependentKillingTensors, KillingBracket, KillingTensors,
KillingVectors, and SymmetricProductsOfKillingTensors] have been
integrated
directly into the Tensor subpackage.
- Matrix Lie algebras
- The commands BracketOfSubspaces and MinimalSubalgebra now accept lists of matrices as arguments.
- The new command MatrixNormalizer commutes the normalizer of a set of matrices within a given Lie algebra.
- With these new commands (and others from prior releases) the
LieAlgebras subpackage now provides good basic support for working
directly with matrix algebras.
- Vector field representation of Lie algebras
- The new command InfinitesimalCoadjointAction calculates the standard vector field representation of a Lie algebra in
terms of the structure constants.
- Vector field normalizers
- The new command InfinitesimalPseudoGroupNormalizer will
calculate the normalizer of a finite dimensional Lie algebra of vector
fields within an
infinite dimensional Lie algebra of vector fields, as parametrized
by arbitrary functions. The command can be used, for example, in
studying reductions
of the Einstein equations.
- Matrix groups and Lie groups
- The command MatrixGroup will calculate the matrix group for a given matrix Lie algebra.
- The command LieGroup has two new calling sequences which allow
you to construct a Lie group module from an r-transformation group or
from the
explicit multiplication map defining the Lie group.
- Invariant tensors
- The calling sequences for the commands
InvariantGeometricObjectFields and
InfinitesimalSymmetriesOfGeometricObjectFields have been extended to
match those used to compute special geometric fields.
- Case-splitting can be invoked with either of these commands.
- Invariant tensor fields on Lie algebras can now be computed with InvariantGeometricObjectFields. Case-splitting can be invoked.
- Database of solutions to the Einstein equations
- Space-time metrics, together with many of their properties, can
now be automatically loaded into a Maple worksheet with the Retrieve
command.
Examples Illustrating New Functionality in Maple 15
Special Tensors
- Killing tensors, Killing-Yano tensors, Killing spinors,
covariantly constant tensors, and recurrent tensors are examples of
tensors which are defined as solutions to certain over-determined
systems of linear partial differential equations. The
DifferentialGeometry package generates these PDE systems; these
equations are solved by pdsolve, and the solutions are re-expressed as
tensor fields of the appropriate type.
- We define a metric g on a manifold M and calculate the covariantly constant 1-forms, the rank 2 Killing tensors, and the rank 2 Killing-Yano tensors.
Principal Null Directions
- The principal null directions of a space-time are
preferred directions determined by rather complicated non-linear
algebraic equations formed from the Weyl tensor of the space-time metric
g .
- The new command PrincipalNullDirections uses the
two-component spinor formalism of the DifferentialGeometry package to
calculate principal null direction via the new command
AdaptedSpinorDyad.
Case Splitting with PetrovType
- For four-dimensional space-times, the Petrov type is a
fundamental invariant which provides important information about the
geometric properties of the space. The possible Petrov types are ["I", "II", "III", "D", "N", "O"].
If the metric depends upon parameters (either constants or functions),
then the Petrov type can change for exceptional values of these
parameters.
- New keyword arguments for the command PetrovType make it now possible to identity these exceptional values.
Case Splitting with KillingVectors
Minimal Subalgebras of Matrices
- The command MinimalSubalgebras has been extended to work with matrices. Given a list of matrices A, this command with calculate the smallest list of matrices which contains A and which is closed under the operation of matrix commutation.
Matrix Groups
- Given a matrix algebra, as defined by a list of matrices A
which are closed under matrix commutation, the corresponding matrix
group can be calculated by taking the matrix exponential of a general
linear combination of the elements of A.
The result is usually rather complicated and not so useful for
subsequently analysis. The command MatrixGroup will use some simple
heuristics to simplify the expression for the matrix group.
- The 4-parameter family of matrices B is closed under matrix
multiplication and matrix inversions. The value of the parameters which
define the identity is also given.
Lie Groups
- The DifferentialGeometry package uses a Maple module to
represent a general Lie group. The exports of the module are
LeftMultiplication, RightMultiplication, Inverse and Identity. These
provide the basic operations for performing computations with Lie
groups.
- The command LieGroup uses various scenarios construct this Maple
module. For Maple 15, new calling sequences for the LieGroup command
has been added to include other common situations. In this example, we
consider a 5 parameter group of affine transformations in the plane and
use the LieGroup command to construct the abstract Lie group defined by
this transformation group.
Invariant Tensor Fields on Lie Algebras
- The functionality of the command InvariantGeometricObjectFields has been extended to an algebraic setting to allow for the
calculation of invariant tensors on Lie algebras.
- In this example, we shall create a 4-dimensional Lie algebra and calculate the symmetric rank 2 tensors on this algebra which
are invariant with respect to a one-dimensional subalgebra.
Retrieve
- With the new database of solutions to the Einstein equations it
is now possible to use the Retrieve command to automatically load into a
worksheet known solutions, taken from the general relativity
literature.

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