Comparison of the DeWitt metric in general relativity with the fourth-rank constitutive tensors in electrodynamics and in elasticity theory

Abstract

We perform a short comparison between the local and linear constitutive tensor ${\chi }^{\lambda \nu \sigma \kappa }$ in four-dimensional electrodynamics (Sec.2), the elasticity tensor $c^{ijkl}$ in three-dimensional elasticity theory (Sec.3), and the DeWitt metric $G^{abcd}$ in general relativity, with $a,b,\cdots =1,2,3$ (Sec.4). We find that the DeWitt metric has only six independent components.

10 pages of latex, minor changes due to suggestions of colleagues and referees, one reference added

Cited by in corpus (1)

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