Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Tp M := (Tp M ) .
If this definition looks confusing, it is worth it to pause and think about what it is
saying. Intuitively, if takes us from M to N , then dp takes us from Tp M to T(p) N . The
way in which it does so, is the following.
M N C (M ) C (N )
g X
g dp (X)
R R
Given X Tp M , we want to construct dp (X) T(p) N , i.e. a derivation on N at f (p).
Derivations act on functions. So, given g : N R, we want to construct a real number
by using and X. There is really only one way to do is. If we precompose g with , we
obtain g : M R, which is an element of C (M ). We can then happily apply X to
this function to obtain a real number. You should check that dp (X) is indeed a tangent
vector to N .
1
Remark 10.1. Note that, to be careful, we should replace C (M ) and C (N ) above with
C (U ) and C (V ), where U M and V N are open and contain p and (p), respec-
tively.
0 0
Example 10.2. If M = Rd and N = Rd , then the differential of f : Rd Rd at p Rd
0 0
dp f : Tp Rd
=vec Rd Tf (p) Rd =vec Rd
with p U M .
Remark 10.3. Note that, by writing dp f (X) := X(f ), we have committed a slight (but
nonetheless real) abuse of notation. Since dp f (X) Tf (p) R, it takes in a function and
return a real number, but X(f ) is already a real number! This is due to the fact that we
have implicitly employed the isomorphism
d : Tp Rd Rd
X 7 (X(proj1 ), . . . , X(projd )),
1 : Tp R R
X 7 X(idR ).
2
Proposition 10.4. Let (U, x) be a chart on M , with p U . The set B = {dp xa | 1 a
dim M } forms a basis of Tp M .
!
a dp x a
= a (xa ) (definition of dp xa )
xb p xb p
= a b (xa x1 )(x(p)) (definition of
)
xb p
= a b (proja )(x(p))
= a ba
= b .
Remark 10.5. Note a slight subtlety. Given a chart (U, x) and the induced basis { x a p }
of Tp M , the dual basis to { x a p } exists simply by virtue of Tp M being the dual space to
Tp M . What we have shown above is that the elements of this dual basis are given explicitly
by the gradients of the co-ordinate maps of (U, x). In our notation, we have
(dxa )p = dp xa , 1 a dim M.
3
Proposition 10.6. Let : M N be smooth. The tangent vector X,p Tp M is pushed
forward to the tangent vector X,(p) T(p) N , i.e.
( )p (X,p ) = X,(p) .
Proof. Let f C (V ), with (V, x) a chart on N and (p) V . By applying the definitions,
we have
where ( )p () is defined as
( )p () : Tp M
R
X 7 (( )p (X)),
a covector ( )p () Tp M .
( )p
C (M ) C (N ) Tp M T(p) N
X
( )p (X) ( )p ()
R R
4
However, if : M N is a diffeomorphism, then we can also pull a vector Y T(p) N
back to a vector ( )p (Y ) Tp M , and push a covector Tp M forward to a covector
N , by using 1 as follows:
( )p () T(p)
( )p (Y ) := ((1 ) )(p) (Y )
( )p () := ((1 ) )(p) ().
1 ((1 ) )(p)
C (M ) C (N ) Tp M T(p) N
Y
( )p (Y ) ( )p ()
R R
Again, this is only possible if is a diffeomorphism. In general, you should keep in mind
that
: M N is an immersion;
M
=top (M ) N , where (M ) carries the subset topology inherited from N .
In the early days of differential geometry there were two approaches to study manifolds.
One was the extrinsic view, within which manifolds are defined as special subsets of Rd ,
and the other was the intrinsic view, which is the view that we have adopted here.
Whitneys theorem, which we will state without proof, states that these two approaches
are, in fact, equivalent.
embedded in R2 dim M ;
5
immersed in R2 dim M 1 .
Example 10.10. The Klein bottle can be embedded in R4 but not in R3 . It can, however,
be immersed in R3 .
What we have presented above is referred to as the strong version of Whitneys theorem.
There is a weak version as well, but there are also even stronger versions of this result, such
as the following.
Theorem 10.11. Any smooth manifold can be immersed in R2 dim M a(dim M ) , where a(n)
is the number of 1s in a binary expansion of n N.
we have a(dim M ) = 2, and thus every 3-dimensional manifold can be immersed into R4 .
Note that even the strong version of Whitneys theorem only tells us that we can immerse
M into R5 .
Definition. Given a smooth manifold M , the tangent bundle of M is the disjoint union of
all the tangent spaces to M , i.e.
a
T M := Tp M,
pM
: TM M
X 7 p,
We now need to equip T M with the structure of a smooth manifold. We can achieve
this by constructing a smooth atlas for T M from a smooth atlas on M , as follows.
Let AM be a smooth atlas on M and let (U, x) AM . If X preim (U ) T M , then
X T(X) M , by definition of . Moreover, since (X) U , we can expand X in terms of
the basis induced by the chart (U, x):
a
X=X ,
xa (X)
6
where X 1 , . . . , X dim M R. We can then define the map
Assuming that T M is equipped with a suitable topology, for instance the initial topol-
ogy (i.e. the coarsest topology on T M that makes continuous), we claim that the pair
(preim (U ), ) is a chart on T M and
AT M := {(preim (U ), ) | (U, x) AM }
is a smooth atlas on T M . Note that, from its definition, it is clear that is a bijection. We
will not show that (preim (U ), ) is a chart here, but we will show that AT M is a smooth
atlas.
Proof. Let (U, x) and (U e) be the two charts on M giving rise to (preim (U ), ) and
e, x
(preim (U ), ), respectively. We need to show that the map
e e
e 1 : x(U U
e ) Rdim M x e ) Rdim M
e(U U
is smooth, as a map between open subsets of R2 dim M . Recall that such a map is smooth
if, and only if, it is smooth componentwise. On the first dim M components, e 1 acts as
e x1 : x(U U
x e) x
e(U U
e)
x(p) 7 x
e(p),
while on the remaining dim M components it acts as the change of vector components we
met previously, i.e.
e a = b (y a x1 )(x(p)) X b .
X a 7 X
Hence, we have
and going through the above again, using the dual basis {(dxa )p } instead of {
xa p }.