Chapter 9 Partitions of Unity, Covering Maps ~
Chapter 9 Partitions of Unity, Covering Maps ~ 9.1 Partitions of Unity To study manifolds, it is often necessary to construct var- ious objects such as functions, vector fields, Riemannian metrics, volume forms, etc., by gluing together items con- structed on the domains of charts. Partitions of unity are a crucial technical tool in this glu- ing process. 505 506 CHAPTER 9. PARTITIONS OF UNITY, COVERING MAPS ~ The first step is to define “bump functions”(alsocalled plateau functions). For any r>0, we denote by B(r) the open ball n 2 2 B(r)= (x1,...,xn) R x + + x <r , { 2 | 1 ··· n } n 2 2 and by B(r)= (x1,...,xn) R x1 + + xn r , its closure. { 2 | ··· } Given a topological space, X,foranyfunction, f : X R,thesupport of f,denotedsuppf,isthe closed set! supp f = x X f(x) =0 . { 2 | 6 } 9.1. PARTITIONS OF UNITY 507 Proposition 9.1. There is a smooth function, b: Rn R, so that ! 1 if x B(1) b(x)= 2 0 if x Rn B(2). ⇢ 2 − See Figures 9.1 and 9.2. 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 K3 K2 K1 0 1 2 3 Figure 9.1: The graph of b: R R used in Proposition 9.1. ! 508 CHAPTER 9. PARTITIONS OF UNITY, COVERING MAPS ~ > Figure 9.2: The graph of b: R2 R used in Proposition 9.1. ! Proposition 9.1 yields the following useful technical result: 9.1. PARTITIONS OF UNITY 509 Proposition 9.2. Let M be a smooth manifold.
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