xAct has more than 500 A4-pages of documentation, distributed in the different packages, and accessible in different formats. Keeping documentation up to date is difficult, and I ask for help in reporting outdated pages and undocumented (or badly documented) features of the system.
xAct
This is a Wolfram Mathematica slideshow I use in my introductory talks. It is a simple and slow introduction to the system:
- xAct_Intro.nb.
- xAct_Intro_NoOutput.nb. Same file, but with all output removed. This is the file I actually use in my talks.
Notes for a course on xTensor, held in Paris in April 2009:
- Introductory talk (1 hour, pdf).
- Basic concepts (2 hours, mathematica slide show).
- Intermediate concepts (2 hours, mathematica slide show).
- Advanced concepts (2 hours, mathematica slide show).
See also the xAct Course held in Prague in 2018 by Alfonso García-Parrado, the introduction to xAct by Teake Nutma, or the introductory tutorial by Jolyon Bloomfield.
xAct tutorial in ICERM 2020: video (or in youtube), full notebook of the talk, smaller notebook without outputs.
xAct intro (Nov 23, 2022) in youtube, notebook of the talk.
Video course by Konstantinos Anagnostopoulos: xAct for the General Theory of Relativity.
Video of a talk by Barry Wardell: Tensor algebra made easy with Mathematica.
Tutorials on Mathematica and xAct presented by Zu-Cheng Chen at Guangzhou University in 2019.
Videos of a series of talks by xAct developers in March 2024, to celebrate 20 years of xAct.
Check out the great collection of contributed xAct example notebooks, and add your own examples to help others learning to use xAct!
xCore
Introductory file xCoreDoc:
- Wolfram Language notebook: xCoreDoc.nb,
xPerm
Introductory file xPermDoc:
- Wolfram Languagenotebook: xPermDoc.nb,
- PDF dump: xPermDoc.nb.pdf,
- Postscript dump: xPermDoc.nb.ps,
- Online HTML: xPermDoc.nb.html.
xTensor
Introductory file xTensorDoc:
- Wolfram Language notebook: xTensorDoc.nb,
- PDF dump: xTensorDoc.nb.pdf,
- Postscript dump: xTensorDoc.nb.ps,
- Online HTML: xTensorDoc.nb.html.
- Wolfram Language notebook: xTensorRefGuide.nb,
- PDF dump: xTensorRefGuide.nb.pdf,
- Postscript dump: xTensorRefGuide.nb.ps,
- Online HTML: xTensorRefGuide.nb.html, with a list of 341 commands.
xCoba
Introductory file xCobaDoc:
- Wolfram Language notebook: xCobaDoc.nb,
- PDF dump: xCobaDoc.nb.pdf,
- Postscript dump: xCobaDoc.nb.ps,
- Online HTML: xCobaDoc.nb.html.
Invar
Introductory file InvarDoc:
- Wolfram Language notebook: InvarDoc.nb,
- PDF dump: InvarDoc.nb.pdf,
- Postscript dump: InvarDoc.nb.ps,
- Online HTML: InvarDoc.nb.html.
Spinors
Introductory file SpinorsDoc:
- Wolfram Language notebook: SpinorsDoc.nb,
- PDF dump: SpinorsDoc.nb.pdf,
- Postscript dump: SpinorsDoc.nb.ps,
- Online HTML: SpinorsDoc.nb.html.
NP and GHP Formalisms:
- Wolfram Language notebook: PublicNPGHP.nb,
- PDF dump: PublicNPGHP.nb.pdf,
- Postscript dump: PublicNPGHP.nb.ps,
- Online HTML: PublicNPGHP.nb.html.
SymManipulator
Introductory file SymManipulator:
- Wolfram Language notebook: SymManipulatorDoc.nb,
- PDF dump: SymManipulatorDoc.nb.pdf,
- Online HTML: SymManipulatorDoc.nb.html.