Manifold Atlas:Definition of “manifold”

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A $\Cat$-isomorphism $(M, A) \cong (N, B)$ is a homeomorphism $f: M \cong N$ which is a $\Cat$ morphism when viewed in every pair of charts in $A$ and $B$.
A $\Cat$-isomorphism $(M, A) \cong (N, B)$ is a homeomorphism $f: M \cong N$ which is a $\Cat$ morphism when viewed in every pair of charts in $A$ and $B$.
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== Riemannian Manifolds ==
== Riemannian Manifolds ==
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Revision as of 13:56, 28 September 2009

1 Introduction

This page defines the term “manifold” as used in the Manifold Atlas. We assume that all manifolds are of a fixed dimension n.

Definition 1.1.

An n-dimensional manifold
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is a second countable, Hausdorff space for which every point x \in M has a neighbourhood U_x homeomorphic to an open subset of \Rr^n_+ := \{ v \in \Rr^n | v_1 \geq 0 \}.
  • The interior of
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    , denoted \mathop{\mathrm{int}}(M), is the subset of points for which U_x is an open subset of \Rr^n.
  • The boundary of
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    , written \partial M, is the complement of \mathop{\mathrm{int}}(M).
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    is called closed if
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    is compact and \partial M is empty.
A manifold
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as above is often called a topological manifold for emphasis or clarity.

Typically, but not necessarly, the word “manifold” will mean "topological manifold with extra structure", be it piecewise-linear, smooth, complex, symplectic, contact, Riemannian, etc. The extra structure will be emphasised or suppressed in notation and vocabulary as is appropriate. We briefly review some common categories of manifolds below.

2 Atlases of charts

We give a unified presentation of the definition of piecewise linear, smooth and complex manifolds
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. In the complex case, we assume that the dimension of
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is even and that the boundary of
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is empty. Recall that a chart on a topological manifold
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is a homeomporphism \phi_\alpha : U_\alpha \to V_\alpha from an open subset U_\alpha of
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to an open subset V_\alpha of \Rr^n_+. The transition function defined by two charts \phi_\alpha and \phi_\beta is the homeomorphism
\displaystyle  \phi_{\alpha\beta} := \phi_\alpha \circ \phi_\beta^{-1}|_{\phi_{\beta}(U_\alpha \cap U_\beta)} : \phi_\beta(U_\alpha \cap U_\beta) \longrightarrow \phi_\alpha(U_\alpha \cap U_\beta).
An atlas for
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is a collection of charts A = \{ (U_\alpha, \phi_\alpha)\} such that the U_\alpha cover
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.

Let \Cat denote either the piecewise linear, smooth or complex categories where by “smooth" we indicate C^\infty maps. An atlas is a \Cat Atlas if every transition function defined by the that atlas is a \Cat function: that is, we require every \phi_{\alpha, \beta} to be either piecewise linear, smooth of class C^\infty or holomorphic. Two \Cat atlases are compatible if their union again forms a \Cat atlas and by Zorn's Lemma each \Cat atlas defines a unique maximal \Cat atlas.

Definition 2.1. A \Cat-manifold (M, A) is a manifold
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together with a maximal \Cat atlas A. A \Cat-isomorphism (M, A) \cong (N, B) is a homeomorphism f: M \cong N which is a \Cat morphism when viewed in every pair of charts in A and B.

3 Riemannian Manifolds

A Riemannian metric g on a smooth manifold
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is a smooth family of scalar products
\displaystyle  g_x : T_xM \times T_xM \longmapsto \Rr
defined on the tangent spaces T_xM for each x in
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. This means that for each pair of smooth vector fields v_1 and v_2 on
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the map
\displaystyle  M \to \Rr, ~~~ x \longmapsto g_x(v_1(x),v_2(x))

is smooth.

Definition 3.1.

A Riemannian manifold (M, g) is a smooth manifold
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together with a Riemannian metric g.

An isometry between Riemannian manifolds is a diffeomorphism whose differential preserves the metric g.


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