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The Riemannian curvature tensor (also holding for manifolds with torsion) is for the vector fields $X,Y,Z$ formally given by: $R(X,Y)Z = (\nabla_X \nabla_Y - \nabla_Y \nabla_X - \nabla_{[X,Y]})Z$.

This tensor clearly exist for smooth manifolds with connection. But what is if the manifold is non-smooth and one cannot find a connection because it is not defined everywhere on the manifold? Are there some generalizations of this curvature tensor (and also generalizations of the connection)?

kryomaxim
  • 2,882
  • Addendum: The curvature Tensor can be obtained by considering the path-ordered exponential around a closed loop. When one has a non-continuous connection, one can integrate over the connection at first and then evaluate the exponential. Finally, the result can be compared with the value of the path-ordered exponential $1+R(X,Y)|X||Y|+...$ where $X,Y$ generate a parallelogram and with absolute values $|...|$ – kryomaxim Feb 05 '15 at 20:29

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