On Bianchi identities (Q2568715)

\textit{G.~Ricci} and his student \textit{T.~Levi-Civita} in their fundamental paper [Math. Ann. 54, 125--201 (1900; JFM 31.0297.01)] laid the foundations to the use of covariant derivatives. Soon after, L.~Bianchi noted that the curvature tensor of a Riemannian metric must satisfy, not only algebraic identities, but also a differential one (often called second Bianchi identity) which he applied to give a new proof of Schur's theorem. \textit{J.~L.~Kazdan} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 81, 341--342 (1981; Zbl 0459.53033)] showed that the Bianchi identities can be derived pointwise from the naturality of the full Riemann curvature operator by calculating the derivatives at \(i=0\) of each term of the equation \(\phi^{*}_i(\text{Riem}(g))=\text{Riem}(\phi^{*}_i(g))\), where \(g\) is a Riemannian metric and \(\{\phi_i\}\) is a one-parameter family of diffeomorphisms of \(\mathbb R^n\) with \(\phi_0=\) identity. In this paper, the author extends the Kazdan approach to general linear connections and obtains the first and second Bianchi identities written with curvature and torsion. It is shown that for any linear connection \(\nabla\) with torsion \(T\) and curvature \(R\) the following identities hold: \[ \begin{gathered} (\nabla_UT)(V,W)+\dots=R(U,V)W+T(U,T(V,W))+\dots\tag{B-1}\\ (\nabla_UR)(V,W)+\dots=R(U,T(V,W))+\dots\tag{B-2} \end{gathered} \] where \(\dots\) mean the cyclic sum on vector fields \((U, V, W)\). In this paper, the author extends the Kazdan approach to general linear connections and obtains the first and second Bianchi identities written with curvature and torsion. It is shown that for any linear connection \(\nabla\) with torsion \(T\) and curvature \(R\) the following identities hold: \[ \begin{gathered} (\nabla_UT)(V,W)+\dots=R(U,V)W+T(U,T(V,W))+\dots\tag{B-1}\\ (\nabla_UR)(V,W)+\dots=R(U,T(V,W))+\dots\tag{B-2} \end{gathered} \] where \(\dots\) mean the cyclic sum on vector fields \((U, V, W)\).