Narrow Results

We present new procedures in the REDUCE language for algebraic programming of the Dirac equation on curved space-time. The main part of the program is a package of routines defining the Pauli and Dirac matrix algebras. Then the Dirac equation is obtained using the facilities of the EXCALC package. Finally we present some results obtained after running our procedures for the Dirac equation on several curved space-times.

We give an elegant formulation of the structure equations (of Cartan) and the Bianchi identities in terms of exterior calculus without reference to a particular basis and without the exterior covariant derivative. This approach allows both structure equations and the Bianchi identities to be expressed in terms of forms of arbitrary degree. We demonstrate the relationship with both the conventional vector version of the Bianchi identities and to the exterior covariant derivative approach. Contact manifolds, codimension one foliations and the Cartan form of classical mechanics are studied as examples of its flexibility and utility.