By components, it is defined as follows.^[1]

${\displaystyle Q_{\mu \alpha \beta }=\nabla _{\mu }g_{\alpha \beta }}$ 

It measures the rate of change of the components of the metric tensor along the flow of a given vector field, since

${\displaystyle \nabla _{\mu }\equiv \nabla _{\partial _{\mu }}}$ 

where ${\displaystyle \{\partial _{\mu }\}_{\mu =0,1,2,3}}$  is the coordinate basis of vector fields of the tangent bundle, in the case of having a 4-dimensional manifold.

We say that a connection ${\displaystyle \Gamma }$  is compatible with the metric when its associated covariant derivative of the metric tensor (call it ${\displaystyle \nabla ^{\Gamma }}$ , for example) is zero, i.e.

${\displaystyle \nabla _{\mu }^{\Gamma }g_{\alpha \beta }=0.}$ 

If the connection is also torsion-free (i.e. totally symmetric) then it is known as the Levi-Civita connection, which is the only one without torsion and compatible with the metric tensor. If we see it from a geometrical point of view, a non-vanishing nonmetricity tensor for a metric tensor ${\displaystyle g}$  implies that the modulus of a vector defined on the tangent bundle to a certain point ${\displaystyle p}$  of the manifold, changes when it is evaluated along the direction (flow) of another arbitrary vector.

• Iosifidis, Damianos; Petkou, Anastasios C.; Tsagas, Christos G. (May 2019). "Torsion/nonmetricity duality in f(R) gravity". General Relativity and Gravitation. 51 (5): 66. arXiv:1810.06602. Bibcode:2019GReGr..51...66I. doi:10.1007/s10714-019-2539-9. ISSN 0001-7701. S2CID 53554290.