CHAPTER 2: SMOOTH MAPS

DAVID GLICKENSTEIN
1. Introduction
In this chapter we introduce smooth maps between manifolds, and some impor-
tant concepts.
Denition 1. A function ) : ' R
k
is a smooth function if for each j ', there
exists a smooth coordinate neighborhood (l, c) of j such that ) c
1
is smooth.
More generally, we have the following.
Denition 2. A map 1 : ' is a smooth map if for each point j '
there exist smooth coordinate neighborhoods (l, c) of j and (\, c) of 1 (j) such
that 1 (l) _ \ and
c 1 c
1
: c(l) R
n
is smooth. The map
^
1 = c 1 c
1
is called a coordinate representation of 1.
Basically, we have that 1 is smooth if and only if it is smooth in its coordinate
representations. Note that we have to be a bit careful of the condition 1 (l) _ \.
Consider some examples.
Example 1. We can use polar coordinates on R
2
. The function ) (r, j) = r
2
+j
2
is equal to
^
) (r, 0) = r
2
in a polar coordinate chart (usually one takes a set such as
_
(r, j) R
2
: j 0
_
for the coordinate domain, otherwise one could nd that the
coordinate chart is not smooth). It follows that ) is smooth.
Lemma 3. Let 1 : ' be a map. If for each j ' there exists an open
set l such that 1[
U
is continuous, then 1 is continuous. If for each j ' there
exists an open set l such that 1[
U
is smooth, then 1 is smooth.
Proof. Suppose that for each j ' there exists an open set l such that 1[
U
is
continuous. So there is a cover l
p

p2M
with this property. Consider an open set
\ _ . We note that
_
1[
Up
_
1
(\ ) = 1
1
(\ ) l
p
so
1
1
(\ ) =
_
p
_
1[
Up
_
1
(\ ) ,
which is open.
Suppose that for each j ' there exists an open set l such that 1[
U
is smooth.
Then if j l such that 1[
U
is smooth, there is a coordinate neighborhood l
0
_ l
Date: September 21, 2010.
1
2 DAVID GLICKENSTEIN
of j and \ _ of 1 (j) such that the coordinate representation is smooth. Since
l
0
is open in ', it follows that 1 is smooth (note that we used 1 (l
0
) _ 1 (l) _
\ ).
Lemma 4. Let ', and be smooth manifolds and let l

be an open cover of
'. Suppose that for each c we are given a smooth map 1

: l

such that
1

[
U\U

= 1

[
U\U

Then there is a unique smooth map 1 : ' such that 1[

U
= 1

.
Proof. We can dene 1 (j) = 1

(j) if j l

. By the assumption, this is well-

dened, i.e., if j l

, then 1

(j) = 1

(j) . Since 1 is smooth in a neighborhood

of each point, it is smooth. Continuous???
Lemma 5. Every smooth map between manifolds is continuous.
Proof. We know that smooth maps between subsets of R
n
and R
m
are continuous.
Suppose 1 : ' is smooth. Thus for each point j ' there exist smooth
coordinate neighborhoods (l, c) of j and (\, c) of 1 (j) such that c 1 c
1
is smooth. If \ _ is open, then \ 1 (') is covered by coordinate charts
(\

, c

)
2A
such at there exist nonempty open coordinate charts (l

, c

) such
that 1 (l

) _ \

and c

1 c
1

is smooth. Since \\

is open, c

(\ \

) is
open, and since 1

= c

1 c
1

is smooth, 1
1

(c

(\ \

)) is open. However,
1
1

(c

(\ \

)) = c

_
1
1
(\ \

)
_
,
so 1
1
(\ \

) is open. Since
1
1
(\) =
_
2A
1
1
(\ \

) ,
we have that 1
1
(\) is open, and since \ is arbitrary it follows that 1 is con-
tinuous.
Denition 6. A dieomorphism ' between smooth :-dimensional manifolds
is a bijective, smooth map with smooth inverse. Two manifolds are dieomorphic
if there exists a dieomorphism between them.
2. Examples of smooth maps
In this section we present some examples of smooth maps.
Example 2. Consider the inclusion map S
n
R
n+1
. We need to check the coor-
dinate representations, which are of the form
_
r
1
, . . . , r
n
_

_
r
1
, . . . , r
n
,
_
1 [r[
2
_
,
with domain the open unit disk. Since the coordinate representations are smooth,
the function is smooth.
Example 3. Consider the quotient map R
n+1
0 RP
n
. The coordinate repre-
sentations look like
_
r
0
, . . . , r
n
_

_
r
1
r
0
, . . . ,
r
n
r
0
_
.
If we restrict to where r
0
0, we see that this is a smooth map.
SMOOTH MAPS 3
Example 4. Consider the restriction of the previous map S
n
RP
n
. The coordi-
nate representation is
_
r
1
, . . . , r
n
_

_
r
1
_
1 [r[
, . . . ,
r
n
_
1 [r[
_
or
_
r
0
, . . . , r
n1
_

_
r
1
r
0
, . . . ,
r
n1
r
0
,
_
1 [r[
r
0
_
.
Example 5. For a product ' , consider the projection map : ' '.
This map is smooth.
3. Partitions of unity
Partitions of unity are used to glue together two smooth maps in such a way that
the new map is smooth. Note that one can easily glue together continuous maps
to be continuous, but if applied to smooth maps, the new map is rarely smooth.
Consider, for example, the absolute value function.
We need a function that smoothly transitions between the constant function 1
and the constant function 0. To do this, we need a nonzero function with all zero
derivatives at a point. Consider the following function
) (r) =
_
c
1=x
if r 0
0 if r _ 0
Lemma 7. The function ) : R R described above is smooth.
Proof. We need to show that the derivatives all exist at r = 0 and are continuous.
Suppose we could show that the right-sided derivatives were zero, i.e.,
lim
x!0
+
)
(k)
(r) = 0
for all / _ 0. Since the derivatives from the left are clearly zero, this is sucient to
show that all derivatives are zero.
We have
lim
x!0
+
)
(0)
(r) = lim
x!0
+
c
1=x
= 0.
Now we will prove by induction that for r 0,
)
(k)
(r) =
j
k
(r)
r
2k
c
1=x
for some polynomial j
k
. This is clearly true for / = 0. Now supposing the formula
for /, we get
)
(k+1)
(r) =
j
0
k
(r)
r
2k
c
1=x
2/
j
k
(r)
r
2k+1
c
1=x

j
k
(r)
r
2k+2
c
1=x
=
r
2
j
0
k
(r) 2/rj
k
(r) j
k
(r)
r
2(k+1)
c
1=x
,
completing the induction. Now we recall that for any integer /,
lim
x!0
+
c
1=x
r
k
= 0
(this is proved using LHospital and induction). It follows that lim
x!0
+ )
(k)
(r) =
0.
4 DAVID GLICKENSTEIN
Using ) we can construct smooth cuto functions.
Lemma 8. There exists a smooth function / : R R such that / is identically
zero on (, 1], / is identically one on [2, ), and 0 < /(r) < 1 for / (1, 2) .
Proof. One way to construct such a function is to consider
/(r) =
) (2 r)
) (2 r) +) (r 1)
.
Notice that /(r) _ 1 and / _ 0 everywhere. if 2r _ 0, i.e., r _ 2, then /(r) = 0,
and if r 1 _ 0, i.e., r _ 1, then /(r) = 1. Note that the denominator is never
zero, since ) (2 r) is positive if r < 2 and ) (r 1) is positive if r 1.
Denition 9. A smooth function as in the lemma is called a cuto function.
The other thing we often need is a bump function.
Denition 10. Let ) : A R be a continuous function. The support of ), denoted
supp) is dened as the closure of the set of points where ) is nonzero, i.e.,
supp) = r A : ) (r) ,= 0.
The function ) is said to be compactly supported if the support is a compact set.
Lemma 11. There exists a smooth function H : R
n
R such that suppH
1(0, 2) and H[
B(0;1)
= 1.
Proof. We can take H (r) = /([r[) . Clearly this is smooth away from 0 since it is
a composition of smooth functions. Notice that H[
B(0;1)
= 1, so it must be smooth
at 0 as well.
Denition 12. Let A be a topological space and let o = o

2A
be a collection
of subsets of A. o is said to be locally nite if each point r A has a neighborhood
that intersects at most nitely many sets in o.
Denition 13. Let ' be a topological space and let A = A

2A
be an open
cover of '. A partition of unity subordinate to A is a collection of continuous
functions c

: ' R
2A
such that
(1) 0 _ c

(r) _ 1 for all c and all r '.

(2) suppc

.
(3) The set of supports suppc

2A
is locally nite.
(4)

2A
c

(r) = 1 for all r '.

Note that it is important that the set is locally nite so that the sum makes
sense (without any notion of series).
Denition 14. If c

are all smooth, then we call the collection a smooth partition

of unity.
One key fact is that manifolds admit partitions of unity. We have already intro-
duced a number of the concepts, but the problem is ensuring that the supports are
locally nite. This will follow from the fact that manifolds are paracompact.
Denition 15. Let | be an open cover of a topological space A. A renement is
another open cover 1 such that for every \ 1 there exists a l | such that
\ _ l. The Hausdor space A is paracompact if every open cover has a locally
nite renement.
SMOOTH MAPS 5
The key fact is that paracompact follows from second countable, so every mani-
fold is paracompact.
Lemma 16. Every topological manifold admits a countable, locally nite cover by
precompact open sets.
Proof. Let ' be a manifold. Recall that ' admits a countable basis of precompact
open sets 1
i

1
i=1
. We will now construct a cover | =l
i

1
i=1
such that
(1) l
i
is compact.
(2) l
i1
_ l
i
if i _ 2.
(3) 1
i
_ l
i
.
Once we have such a cover, we see that the set 1 =
_
\
i
= l
i+2
l
i
_
1
i=1
'l
1
, l
2

is the appropriate cover. Since \

i
is a closed subset of l
i+2
, which is compact, it
follows that \
i
are precompact. Also, we have that \
i
\
j
is empty unless [i ,[ _ 1,
so 1 is locally nite. It is clear that
_
V 2V
\ =
_
U2U
l,
so 1 is a cover.
To construct |, we proceed inductively. Let l
1
= 1
1
. Then l
1
satises all three
properties. Inductively, lets suppose we have l
1
, . . . , l
k1
(/ _ 2 ) satisfying all
three properties. Note that since l
k1
is precompact, there is a nite number :
k
such that
l
k1
1
1
' 1
2
' ' 1
m
k
.
Set l
k
to be
l
k
=
max(m
k
;k)
_
i=1
1
i
.
This will satisfy all the axioms.
Now a slightly stronger version of paracompactness.
Denition 17. An open cover | is regular if
(1) | is countable and locally nite.
(2) Each l
i
| is the domain of a smooth coordinate map c
i
: l
i
R
n
whose
image is 1(0, 3) _ R
n
.
(3) The (countable) collection \
i
still covers ', where \
i
= c
1
i
(1(0, 1)) .
Lemma 18. Let ' be a manifold. Then every open cover admits a regular rene-
ment. In particular, ' is paracompact.
Proof. Let A be an open cover of ' and let \
j
be a countable, locally nite
cover of ' by precompact sets guaranteed by Lemma 16. For each j ', there
exists an open neighborhood \
0
p
of j that intersects only nitely many \
j
. Denote
by 1
p
the set of \
j
containing j. Now let
\
p
= \
0
p

_
_

V 2Vp
\
_
_
.
Note that this is an open set, since 1
p
is a nite set. It follows that if j \
i
, then
\
p
_ \
i
. Since j A
p
for some A
p
A, for each j we can consider \
00
p
_ \
p
A
p
6 DAVID GLICKENSTEIN
such that where
_
\
00
p
, c
p
_
is a coordinate ball centered at j, choosing c
p
such that
c
p
: \
00
p
1(0, 3) .
Now let
l
p
= c
1
p
(1(0, 1)) .
The sets l
p
cover ', and the sets \
00
p
form a renement of A with the correct
coordinate map property. We need to restrict to a countable subcover and show
that it is locally nite. Dene Notice that the set
_
l
p
: j \
i
_
forms a cover of \
i
, and since \
i
is compact, there is a nite subcover
_
l
i;1
, . . . , l
i;k(i)
_
.
This subcover corresponds to a collection of \
00
p
that we denote
_
\
00
i;1
, . . . , \
00
i;k(i)
_
.
We can now take the union of these over all i N, and call it |. This is count-
able (since it is the countable union of nite sets), a renement of A, and has the
appropriate coordinate map conditions.
We still need to show that | is locally nite. Notice that if \
00
i;k
\
00
i
0
;k
0 , then
since there are ,, ,
0
such that \
00
i;k
_ \
j
and \
00
i
0
;k
0 _ \
j
0 , we must have \
j
\
j
0 ,
\
i
\
j
, and \
i
0 \
j
0 all nonempty. If we x i, there are only nitely many i
0
that
satisfy this since \
j
is locally nite. It follows that | is locally nite. (Note: this
argument is from the errata on J. Lees website.)
Theorem 19. If ' is a smooth manifold and A = A

2A
is any open cover of
', there exists a smooth partition of unity subordinate to A.
Proof. Let \
i
be a regular renement of A, and let c
i
: \
i
1(0, 3) be the
corresponding coordinate maps. By Lemma 11, there is a smooth function H that
is 1 on 1(0, 1) and zero outside 1(0, 2) . For every i N, let )
i
: ' R be the
function
)
i
(j) =
_
H (c
i
(j)) if j \
i
0 else
These are clearly smooth and equal to one on l
i
= c
1
i
(1(0, 1)) .
Now dene
q
i
(j) =
)
i
(j)

i
)
i
(j)
.
The sum in the bottom makes sense because \
i
is locally nite, so the denom-
inator is a nite sum. Furthermore, since every j is in some l
i
, the denominator
is never zero. Note that

q
i
(j) = 1 for all j '. Finally, we need to re-index so
that we are indexed by the set . Every \
i
is contained in some A

, so there is a
function a : N such that a (i) is the appropriate c. It may be that more than
one i corresponds to the same c, so we need to sum:
`

(j) =

i2a
1
()
q
i
(j)
(if a
1
(c) = ?, then the sum is zero). Again, there can be only nitely many
nonzero q
i
() in a neighborhood of j, so the sum is nite and the function is
smooth. It also follows that the supports are locally nite for the same reason, thus
`

is the partition of unity.

It will follow that bump functions exist.
SMOOTH MAPS 7
Denition 20. If _ ' is a closed subset and l _ ' is an open set containing
, a continuous function c : ' R is called a bump function for supported in
l if 0 _ c (r) _ 1 on ', c = 1 on A and suppc _ l.
Proposition 21. Let ' be a smooth manifold. For any closed set _ ' and
any open set l containing , there exists a smooth bump function for supported
in l.
Proof. Consider the cover l, ' of '. There is a smooth partition of unity
c
0
, c
1
subordinate to this cover. It is clear that c
1
= 0 on , so c
0
= 1 on
since c
0
+c
1
= 1.
Recall the denition of a smooth function on a closed set .
Denition 22. Let _ ' be a closed set. A function 1 : is smooth if
for every j there is a neighborhood \ of j and a smooth function
~
1 : \
such that
~
1

W\A
= 1[
W\A
.
Lemma 23. Let ' be a smooth manifold, and let _ ' be a closed subset, and
let ) : R
k
be a smooth function. For any open set l containing , there exists
a smooth function
~
) : ' R
k
such that
~
)

A
= ) and supp
~
) _ l.
One might be temped to use the smooth bump function / and look at /). The
problem is that we do not know there is a smooth extenion of ) to l, so we cannot
get a smooth function this way. The proof is slightly more involved.
Proof. We know that for each j, there exists a neighborhood \
p
and function
~
)
p
: \
p
R
k
with the appropriate properties. We can replace \
p
with \
p
l to
ensure \
p
_ l. The set
\
p

p2A
' '
forms an open cover, and we can nd a partition of unity c
p
' c
0
subordinate
to it. We then dene
~
) (r) =

p2M
c
p
(r)
~
)
p
(r) .
Since
_
supp
~
)
p
_
p
is locally nite, the sum is nite. Since supp
~
)
p
_ \
p
_ l, we
have that supp
~
) _ l and
~
) is smooth. Finally, for r , we have
~
) (r) = c
0
(r) ) (r) +

p2M
c
p
(r)
~
)
p
(r) =
_
c
0
(r) +

c
p
(r)
_
) (r) = ) (r) .

Denition 24. Let ' be a topological space. An exhaustion function for ' is a
continuous function ) : ' R such that '
c
= r ' : ) (r) _ c is compact for
each c R.
Some popular exhaustion functions are ) (r) = [r[
2
for R
n
and ) (r) =
1
1jxj
2
for the open ball of radius 1.
Proposition 25. Every smooth manifold admits a smooth positive exhaustion func-
tion.
8 DAVID GLICKENSTEIN
Proof. Let \
j

j2N
be a countable open cover of a manifold ' by precompact
sets and let c
j

j2N
be a smooth partition of unity subordinate to \
j
. Dene
) : ' R by
) (r) =
1

j=1
,c
j
(r) .
This sum is nite (for each r) since the supports are locally nite, and the function
is smooth. It is positive
) (r) _
1

j=1
c
j
(r) = 1.