Attitude matrix and connection forms

connectionsdifferential-geometry

I'm stuck trying to proof this theorem presented at Elementary Differential Geometry O'Neil :

Theorem : If $A=(a_{ij})$ is the attitude matrix and $\omega=(\omega_{ij})$ the matrix of connections forms of a frame field $E_1,\dotsm, E_n$, then $\omega=dA.A^{T}$

We have that $a_{ij}=<E_i,U_j>$ where $U_j$ is the natural frame and $\omega_{ij}(v)=<\nabla_v E_i,E_j>$ is the connection form related to the frame field $E_1,\dotsm,E_j$.

My guest is: we know that A is orthogonal, so $A^{-1}=A^T$; thus $\omega.A=dA$ and just use these definitions, but I'm doing something wrong… thanks in advance for any help.

Best Answer

Note that $A$ is the matrix whose row vectors are the vectors $E_i$ written in terms of the standard basis $U_j$. So $$\omega_{ij}= \langle\nabla E_i,E_j\rangle = \langle dE_i,E_j\rangle = (dA\,A^\top)_{ij},$$ as required.

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