Chapter 5 Manifolds, Tangent Spaces, Cotangent Spaces, Submanifolds, Manifolds With Boundary 5.1 Charts and Manifolds In Chapter 1 we defined the notion of a manifold embed- ded in some ambient space, RN . In order to maximize the range of applications of the the- ory of manifolds it is necessary to generalize the concept of a manifold to spaces that are not a priori embedded in some RN . The basic idea is still that, whatever a manifold is, it is atopologicalspacethatcanbecoveredbyacollectionof open subsets, U↵,whereeachU↵ is isomorphic to some “standard model,” e.g.,someopensubsetofEuclidean space, Rn. 293 294 CHAPTER 5. MANIFOLDS, TANGENT SPACES, COTANGENT SPACES Of course, manifolds would be very dull without functions defined on them and between them. This is a general fact learned from experience: Geom- etry arises not just from spaces but from spaces and interesting classes of functions between them. In particular, we still would like to “do calculus” on our manifold and have good notions of curves, tangent vec- tors, di↵erential forms, etc. The small drawback with the more general approach is that the definition of a tangent vector is more abstract. We can still define the notion of a curve on a manifold, but such a curve does not live in any given Rn,soitit not possible to define tangent vectors in a simple-minded way using derivatives. 5.1. CHARTS AND MANIFOLDS 295 Instead, we have to resort to the notion of chart. This is not such a strange idea. For example, a geography atlas gives a set of maps of various portions of the earth and this provides a very good description of what the earth is, without actually imagining the earth embedded in 3-space. Given Rn,recallthattheprojection functions, n pri : R R,aredefinedby ! pr (x ,...,x )=x , 1 i n. i 1 n i For technical reasons, in particular to ensure that par- titions of unity exist (a crucial tool in manifold theory) from now on, all topological spaces under consideration will be assumed to be Hausdor↵and second-countable (which means that the topology has a countable basis). 296 CHAPTER 5. MANIFOLDS, TANGENT SPACES, COTANGENT SPACES Definition 5.1. Given a topological space, M,achart (or local coordinate map)isapair,(U,'), where U is an open subset of M and ': U ⌦isahomeomorphism ! onto an open subset, ⌦= '(U), of Rn' (for some n 1). ' ≥ For any p M,achart,(U,'), is a chart at p i↵ p U. 2 2 If (U,')isachart,thenthefunctionsxi = pri ' are called local coordinates and for every p U,thetuple◦ 2 (x1(p),...,xn(p)) is the set of coordinates of p w.r.t. the chart. 1 The inverse, (⌦,'− ), of a chart is called a local parametrization. Given any two charts, (Ui,'i)and(Uj,'j), if Ui Uj = ,wehavethetransition maps, j \ 6 ; 'i : 'i(Ui Uj) 'j(Ui Uj)and 'i : ' (U \ U ) ! ' (U \ U ), defined by j j i \ j ! i i \ j j 1 i 1 ' = ' '− and ' = ' '− . i j ◦ i j i ◦ j 5.1. CHARTS AND MANIFOLDS 297 i j 1 Clearly, 'j =('i )− . j i Observe that the transition maps 'i (resp. 'j)aremaps between open subsets of Rn. This is good news! Indeed, the whole arsenal of calculus is available for functions on Rn,andwewillbeableto promote many of these results to manifolds by imposing suitable conditions on transition functions. Definition 5.2. Given a topological space, M,given some integer n 1andgivensomek such that k is either an integer≥k 1ork = ,aCk n-atlas (or k ≥ 1 n-atlas of class C ), ,isafamilyofcharts, (Ui,'i) , such that A { } n (1) 'i(Ui) R for all i; ✓ (2) The Ui cover M,i.e., M = Ui; i [ j (3) Whenever Ui Uj = ,thetransitionmap'i (and i k \ 6 ; j 'j)isaC -di↵eomorphism. When k = ,the'i are smooth di↵eomorphisms. 1 298 CHAPTER 5. MANIFOLDS, TANGENT SPACES, COTANGENT SPACES We must insure that we have enough charts in order to carry out our program of generalizing calculus on Rn to manifolds. For this, we must be able to add new charts whenever necessary, provided that they are consistent with the pre- vious charts in an existing atlas. Technically, given a Ck n-atlas, ,onM,foranyother chart, (U,'), we say that (U,')isA compatible with the 1 1 k atlas i↵every map 'i '− and ' 'i− is C (whenever U UA = ). ◦ ◦ \ i 6 ; Two atlases and 0 on M are compatible i↵every chart of one isA compatibleA with the other atlas. This is equivalent to saying that the union of the two atlases is still an atlas. 5.1. CHARTS AND MANIFOLDS 299 It is immediately verified that compatibility induces an equivalence relation on Ck n-atlases on M. In fact, given an atlas, ,forM,thecollection, ,of all charts compatible withA is a maximal atlas inA the A equivalence class of atlases compatible with . e A Definition 5.3. Given some integer n 1andgiven some k such that k is either an integer k ≥ 1ork = , a Ck-manifold of dimension n consists of≥ a topological1 space, M,togetherwithanequivalenceclass, ,ofCk n-atlases, on M.Anyatlas, ,intheequivalenceclassA is called a di↵erentiable structureA of class Ck (and A dimension n) on M.WesaythatM is modeled on Rn. When k = ,wesaythatM is a smooth manifold. 1 Remark: It might have been better to use the terminol- ogy abstract manifold rather than manifold, to empha- size the fact that the space M is not a priori a subspace of RN ,forsomesuitableN. 300 CHAPTER 5. MANIFOLDS, TANGENT SPACES, COTANGENT SPACES We can allow k =0intheabovedefinitions.Condition (3) in Definition 5.2 is void, since a C0-di↵eomorphism j is just a homeomorphism, but 'i is always a homeomor- phism. In this case, M is called a topological manifold of di- mension n. We do not require a manifold to be connected but we require all the components to have the same dimension, n. Actually, on every connected component of M,itcanbe shown that the dimension, n',oftherangeofeverychart is the same. This is quite easy to show if k 1butfor k =0,thisrequiresadeeptheoremofBrouwer.≥ What happens if n =0?Inthiscase,everyone-point subset of M is open, so every subset of M is open, i.e., M is any (countable if we assume M to be second-countable) set with the discrete topology! Observe that since Rn is locally compact and locally con- nected, so is every manifold. 5.1. CHARTS AND MANIFOLDS 301 1 Figure 5.1: A nodal cubic; not a manifold In order to get a better grasp of the notion of manifold it is useful to consider examples of non-manifolds. First, consider the curve in R2 given by the zero locus of the equation y2 = x2 x3, − namely, the set of points 2 2 2 3 M1 = (x, y) R y = x x . { 2 | − } This curve showed in Figure 5.1 and called a nodal cubic is also defined as the parametric curve x =1 t2 − y = t(1 t2). − 302 CHAPTER 5. MANIFOLDS, TANGENT SPACES, COTANGENT SPACES We claim that M1 is not even a topological manifold. The problem is that the nodal cubic has a self-intersection at the origin. If M1 was a topological manifold, then there would be a connected open subset, U M1,containingtheorigin, O =(0, 0), namely the intersection✓ of a small enough open disc centered at O with M1,andalocalchart, ': U ⌦, where ⌦is some connected open subset of R (that is,! an open interval), since ' is a homeomorphism. However, U O consists of four disconnected com- ponents and ⌦−{'}(O)oftwodisconnectedcomponents, contradicting the− fact that ' is a homeomorphism. 5.1. CHARTS AND MANIFOLDS 303 1 Figure 5.2: A Cuspidal Cubic Let us now consider the curve in R2 given by the zero locus of the equation y2 = x3, namely, the set of points 2 2 3 M2 = (x, y) R y = x . { 2 | } This curve showed in Figure 5.2 and called a cuspidal cubic is also defined as the parametric curve x = t2 y = t3. 304 CHAPTER 5. MANIFOLDS, TANGENT SPACES, COTANGENT SPACES Consider the map, ': M2 R,givenby ! '(x, y)=y1/3. 2/3 1 Since x = y on M2,weseethat'− is given by 1 2 3 '− (t)=(t ,t ) and clearly, ' is a homeomorphism, so M2 is a topological manifold. However, in the atlas consisting of the single chart, ': M2 R ,thespaceM2 is also a smooth manifold! { ! } Indeed, as there is a single chart, condition (3) of Defini- tion 5.2 holds vacuously. This fact is somewhat unexpected because the cuspidal cubic is usually not considered smooth at the origin, since the tangent vector of the parametric curve, c: t (t2,t3), at the origin is the zero vector (the velocity vector7! at t, 2 is c0(t)=(2t, 3t )). 5.1. CHARTS AND MANIFOLDS 305 However, this apparent paradox has to do with the fact 2 that, as a parametric curve, M2 is not immersed in R since c0 is not injective (see Definition 5.19 (a)), whereas as an abstract manifold, with this single chart, M2 is di↵eomorphic to R. Now, we also have the chart, : M2 R,givenby ! (x, y)=y, 1 with − given by 1 2/3 − (u)=(u ,u). Then, observe that 1 1/3 ' − (u)=u , ◦ amapthatisnot di↵erentiable at u =0.Therefore,the 1 atlas ': M2 R, : M2 R is not C and thus, { ! ! } 1 with respect to that atlas, M2 is not a C -manifold. 306 CHAPTER 5. MANIFOLDS, TANGENT SPACES, COTANGENT SPACES The example of the cuspidal cubic shows a peculiarity of k the definition of a C (or C1)manifold: If a space, M,happenstobeatopologicalmanifoldbe- cause it has an atlas consisting of a single chart, then it is automatically a smooth manifold! In particular, if f : U Rm is any continuous function ! from some open subset, U,ofRn,toRm,thenthegraph, Γ(f) Rn+m,off given by ✓ n+m Γ(f)= (x, f(x)) R x U { 2 | 2 } is a smooth manifold with respect to the atlas consisting of the single chart, ':Γ(f) U,givenby ! '(x, f(x)) = x, 1 with its inverse, '− : U Γ(f), given by ! 1 '− (x)=(x, f(x)).