Covariant and Contravariant Vectors

Details Covariant and Contravariant Vectors Covariant and Contravariant Vectors

2010-02-17

arxiv.org/abs/1002.3217v1

Physics

Mathematical Physics

9 pages, Pedagogical Article

Scientific paper

Vector is a physical quantity and it does not depend on any co-ordinate system. It need to be expanded in some basis for practical calculation and its components do depend on the chosen basis. The expansion in orthonormal basis is mathematically simple. But in many physical situations we have to choose an non-orthogonal basis (or oblique co-ordinate system). But the expansion of a vector in non-orthogonal basis is not convenient to work with. With the notion of contravariant and covariant components of a vector, we make non-orthogonal basis to behave like orthonormal basis. The same notion appears in quantum mechanics as Ket and Bra vectors and we compare the two equivalent situation via the completeness relation. This notion appears in the differential geometry of a metric manifold for tangent vectors at a point, where it takes into account the non-orthogonality of basis as well as non-Euclidean geometry.

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