🧄Vanishing Divergence of the Levi-Civita Tensor

The totally antisymmetric tensor, ηa1aN=εa1aN/g\eta^{ a _1 \ldots a _{ N }}=\varepsilon^{ a 1 \ldots a { N }} / \sqrt{ g }, is a true tensor (weight w=0w=0 ) formed by dividing the Levi-Civita symbol by g\sqrt{g}. Its divergence vanishes identically ( aNηa1aN=0\nabla { aN } \eta^{ a 1 \ldots a { N }}= 0 ) because it is covariantly constant ( bηa1aN=0\nabla_b \eta^{a_1 \ldots a_N}=0 ), a fundamental property of the Levi-Civita connection that preserves the volume element. The explicit proof requires recognizing the identity i=1NΓaNcaiηa1c1aN=ΓaNccηa1aN\sum{i=1}^N \Gamma{a_N c}^{a_i} \eta^{a_1 \ldots c_1 \ldots a_N}=\Gamma{a{N c}}^c \eta^{a_1 \ldots a_N}, which, combined with the hint Γabb=δaln(g)\Gamma{ ab }^{ b }= \delta { a } \ln (\sqrt{ g }), demonstrates that the two non-vanishing terms in the covariant derivative ( aNη\partial{a_N} \eta and Γη\Gamma \eta ) perfectly cancel each other out.

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