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I'm reading the Blumenhagen-Lust-Theisen book on string theory. On page 18, They want to discuss whether a global conformal flat metric can exist, namely $$ h_{\alpha\beta}=e^{2\phi}\eta_{\alpha\beta} $$ To see if this is possible, they decompose the change of metric under reparametrizations and Weyl rescaling as $$ \delta h_{\alpha\beta}=-(P\xi)_{\alpha\beta}+2\tilde\Lambda h_{\alpha\beta} $$ where $$ (P\xi)_{\alpha\beta}:=\nabla_\alpha\xi_\beta+\nabla_\beta\xi_\alpha-(\nabla_\gamma\xi^\gamma)h_{\alpha\beta} $$ and $\xi$ is given by the reparametrization $X\to X+\xi$. The authors say that the first term in $\delta h_{\alpha\beta}$ is traceless, and the second term has a non-zero trace, so there must exist a globally defined vector field $\xi^\alpha$ such that $$ (P\xi)_{\alpha\beta}=t_{\alpha\beta} $$ for all symmetric traceless $t_{\alpha\beta}$. But I don't understand how this implication holds, and how does the existence of such vector field related to the existence of global conformal metric.

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  • $\begingroup$ Related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/410900/2451 $\endgroup$
    – Qmechanic
    Commented Apr 25 at 21:36
  • $\begingroup$ @Qmechanic why is the question closed? The attached answer is completely different with mine, I'm asking about global conformal gauge and its relation to conformal Killing equations, which is completely didn't mentioned in that answer $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 26 at 16:08
  • $\begingroup$ also, that question is about local flat conformal gauge, mine is about global things. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 26 at 16:09

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