General relativity |
---|
In mathematical physics, a pseudo-Riemannian manifold,[1][2] also called a semi-Riemannian manifold, is a differentiable manifold with a metric tensor that is everywhere nondegenerate. This is a generalization of a Riemannian manifold in which the requirement of positive-definiteness is relaxed.
Every tangent space of a pseudo-Riemannian manifold is a pseudo-Euclidean vector space.
A special case used in general relativity is a four-dimensional Lorentzian manifold for modeling spacetime, where tangent vectors can be classified as timelike, null, and spacelike.