index-notation

# index-notation - Index Notation for Vector Calculus by Ilan...

This preview shows pages 1–4. Sign up to view the full content.

Index Notation for Vector Calculus by Ilan Ben-Yaacov and Francesc Roig Copyright c ± 2006 Index notation, also commonly known as subscript notation or tensor notation, is an extremely useful tool for performing vector algebra. Consider the coordinate system illustrated in Figure 1. Instead of using the typical axis labels x , y , and z , we use x 1 , x 2 , and x 3 , or x i i =1 , 2 , 3 The corresponding unit basis vectors are then ˆ e 1 , ˆ e 2 , and ˆ e 3 , or ˆ e i i , 2 , 3 The basis vectors ˆ e 1 , ˆ e 2 , and ˆ e 3 have the following properties: ˆ e 1 · ˆ e 1 e 2 · ˆ e 2 e 3 · ˆ e 3 (1) ˆ e 1 · ˆ e 2 e 1 · ˆ e 3 e 2 · ˆ e 3 =0 (2) x 1 x 2 x 3 a 1 a 2 a 3 a e 1 e 2 e 3 Figure 1: Reference coordinate system. 1

This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version.

View Full Document
2 Index Notation We now introduce the Kronecker delta symbol δ ij . δ ij has the following prop- erties: δ ij = ± 0 i ± = j 1 i = j i, j =1 , 2 , 3 (3) Using Eqn 3, Eqns 1 and 2 may be written in index notation as follows: ˆ e i · ˆ e j = δ ij i, j , 2 , 3 (4) In standard vector notation, a vector ± A may be written in component form as ± A= A x ˆ i + A y ˆ j + A z ˆ k (5) Using index notation, we can express the vector ± A as ± A 1 ˆ e 1 + A 2 ˆ e 2 + A 3 ˆ e 3 = 3 ² i =1 A i ˆ e i (6) Notice that in the expression within the summation, the index i is repeated . Re- peated indices are always contained within summations, or phrased differently a repeated index implies a summation. Therefore, the summation symbol is typi- cally dropped, so that ± A can be expressed as ± A i ˆ e i 3 ² i =1 A i ˆ e i (7) This repeated index notation is known as Einstein’s convention. Any repeated index is called a dummy index . Since a repeated index implies a summation over all possible values of the index, one can always relabel a dummy index, i.e. ± A i ˆ e i = A j ˆ e j = A k ˆ e k etc. A 1 ˆ e 1 + A 2 ˆ e 2 + A 3 ˆ e 3 (8) Copyright c ² 2006 by Ilan Ben-Yaacov and Francesc Roig
Index Notation 3 The Scalar Product in Index Notation We now show how to express scalar products (also known as inner products or dot products) using index notation. Consider the vectors ± a and ± b , which can be expressed using index notation as ± a = a 1 ˆ e 1 + a 2 ˆ e 2 + a 3 ˆ e 3 = a i ˆ e i ± b = b 1 ˆ e 1 + b 2 ˆ e 2 + b 3 ˆ e 3 = b j ˆ e j (9) Note that we use different indices ( i and j ) for the two vectors to indicate that the index for ± b is completely independent of that used for ± a . We will Frst write out the scalar product ± a · ± b in long-hand form, and then express it more compactly using some of the properties of index notation.

This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version.

View Full Document
This is the end of the preview. Sign up to access the rest of the document.

## This note was uploaded on 10/29/2009 for the course PHYS 0000 taught by Professor Many during the Spring '09 term at TN State.

### Page1 / 10

index-notation - Index Notation for Vector Calculus by Ilan...

This preview shows document pages 1 - 4. Sign up to view the full document.

View Full Document
Ask a homework question - tutors are online