1

Introduction

This is a quick review of some index notation that will be useful in simplifying expressions to perform computations on various objects known as tensors, but we will simply use them in the context of proving various identies involving the vector scalar and cross products. We can represent the components of a vector a R3 by (a)i = ai R for i = 1, 2, 3 and adopt Einstein notation i.e summation is implied by repeated indices, which will be explained as we go along.

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2.1

Index Notation
Some tools

Kronecker delta: ij = e.g 11 = 1, 12 = 0 etc. Properties:

3

0 for i = j 1 for i = j

ij aj = ai
j =1 3

ai ij = aj
i=1 3

ik kj = ij
k=1

Levi-civita symbol: 1 even permutations of (1, 2, 3) = 1 odd permutations of (1, 2, 3) 0 repeated indices
112

ijk

e.g

123

= 1,

321

= 1,

= 0 etc.

We can represent this as:

ijk

(i j )(j k )(k i) 2

for i, j, k = 1, 2, 3 Relation to Kronecker delta:

ijk kmn

= im jn in jm

We can write the scalar and cross products in a more compact form: Scalar Product:
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ab=
i,j =1

ij ai bj = ij ai bj

Cross Product: The ith component of the cross product can be represented as
3

(a b)i =
j,k=1

ijk aj bk

ijk aj bk

Simularly, we can repesent the ith component of of the Gradient (Del) oper = i where x are the usual cartesian coordinates i.e ator by ()i = x i (x)1 = x1 = x, x2 = y and x3 = z . With this machinery, it is now quite simple to prove identieis that involve scalar and cross products of various object. You just have to keep track of the indices; it shouldnt be repeated more than twice as it could lead to ambigiuity in the expression, also dummy indices i.e those which are being summed can always be replaced by another letter and it is useful to do so when trying to compare dierent objects. Let me illustrate the notation by applying it to prove an idenity on the problem sheet. If we represent the ith component of a vector eld by (v )i = vi (x, y, z ) = vi , then for every vector eld v (x, y, z ): ( v ) = 0. ( v ) = ij i ( v )j = ij i 2
jmn m vn

= ij

2 vn = jmn xi xm

2 vn = imn xi xm

2 vn = min xm xi

2 vn = 0 imn xi xm

Where in the last two lines we applied the anti-symmetry of the LeviCivita symbol upon exchanging indices, symmtry of the partial derivatives and replacing dummy indices to put it in the form that we can compare with what we have before. We have just shown that the above is equal to minus itself i.e x = x and so x = 0 is the only solution.