PH-609: Assignment-1

• Question 1 (10 marks):

Expression of the tidal force in a spaceship: Consider the situation where we

have a spaceship orbiting the earth at a radius, x0 (i.e. it is the distance between the
center of the earth to the center of the spaceship). Here we have two frames, first
is the frame fixed on earth with its origin of coordinates at the center of earth. We
will assume this to be an inertial frame for the time being. The second frame is the
frame attached to the spaceship and in which the origin of coordinates is located at
the center of mass of the spaceship. This orbiting spaceship is freely falling, so the
spaceship-frame being accelerated wrt earthframe, is a non-inertial frame. Show that
a particle located at point P in the spaceship whose coordinates are given by ~x in the
spaceship frame (and say X ~ in the earth frame), experiences a force due to variation
of the earth’s gravitational field in the spaceship, given by:

@F i (x) ⇣ @2 ⌘
f i (x) = xj = xj m . (1)
@xj @xi @xj x=0

(P ) is the gravitational potential produced by earth at P . i, j = 1, 2, 3 corresponds

to three space-coordinates.
Prove that the tidal force is divergenceless.

• Question 2 (10 marks):

Show that orthochronous Lorentz transformations form a group itself. (Hint: Use
the defining equation for the Lorentz transformations (LT) and the fact that the metric
(inverse) remains invariant under LT.)

• Question 3 (2 marks):

Show that Aµ⌫ B ⌫ C µ  transforms like the  component of a rank (0, 2) tensor under
LT. Indices here are space-time indices.

• Question 4 (3 marks):

Show that the Levi-Civita tensor, ✏µ⌫⇢ , is an invariant pseudotensor of rank (0, 4)
under LT. (Recall that a pseudotensor is one which transforms like a tensor only under
proper LT.) Again, indices here are space-time indices.