Fermi-Walker differentiation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the theory of Lorentzian manifolds, Fermi-Walker differentiation is a generalization of covariant differentiation.

[edit] Application to general relativity

In general relativity, Fermi-Walker derivatives of the spacelike unit vector fields in a frame field, taken with respect to the timelike unit vector field in the frame field, are used to define non-inertial but nonspinning frames, by stipulating that the Fermi-Walker derivatives should vanish. In the special case of inertial frames, the Fermi-Walker derivatives reduce to covariant derivatives.