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Lec 04

This document summarizes a lecture on the partition of unity theorem. It begins by stating and proving the existence of a partition of unity subordinate to an open cover of a smooth manifold. It then proves two technical lemmas about locally finite open refinements that are used in the proof. Finally, it applies the partition of unity theorem to prove the Whitney approximation theorem, which states that any continuous function on a manifold can be approximated by a smooth function.

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10 views4 pages

Lec 04

This document summarizes a lecture on the partition of unity theorem. It begins by stating and proving the existence of a partition of unity subordinate to an open cover of a smooth manifold. It then proves two technical lemmas about locally finite open refinements that are used in the proof. Finally, it applies the partition of unity theorem to prove the Whitney approximation theorem, which states that any continuous function on a manifold can be approximated by a smooth function.

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matbaila247
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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LECTURE 4: PARTITION OF UNITY

1. Existence of P.O.U.
We will prove the following fundamental theorem:
Theorem 1.1 (Existence of P.O.U.). Let M be a smooth manifold, and {Uα } an open
cover of M . Then there exists a P.O.U. subordinate to {Uα }.

In other words, we need to find a family {ρα } of smooth functions so that


(1) 0 ≤ ρα ≤ 1 for all α.
(2) supp(ρα ) ⊂ Uα for all α.
(3) each point p ∈ M has a neighborhood which intersects supp(ρα ) for only finitely
many α.
P
(4) α ρα (p) = 1 for all p ∈ M .
The proof depends on the following technical lemma.
Lemma 1.2. Let M be any topological manifold. For any open cover U = {Uα } of M ,
one can find two countable family of open covers V = {Vj } and W = {Wj } of M so
that
• For each j, V j is compact and V j ⊂ Wj .
• W is a refinement of U: For each j, there is an α = α(j) so that Wj ⊂ Uα .
• W is a locally finite cover: Any p ∈ M has a neighborhood W such that W ∩
Wj 6= ∅ for only finitely many Wj ’s.
Remark. A topological space X is called paracompact if every open cover admits a
locally finite open refinement.

We will first prove Theorem 1.1, then prove Lemma 1.2.


Proof of Theorem 1.1. [Please compare the first paragraph of this proof with the proof
of Theorem 1.2 in Lecture 3.] Since V j is compact and V j ⊂ Wj , according to Theorem
1.2 in Lecture 3 we can find nonnegative functions ϕj ∈ C0∞ (M ) so that 0 ≤ ϕj ≤ 1,
ϕj ≡ 1 on V j and supp(ϕj ) ⊂ Wj . Since W is a locally finite cover, the function
X
ϕ= ϕj
j

is a well-defined smooth function on M . Since each ϕj is nonnegative, and V is a cover


of M , ϕ is strictly positive on M . It follows that the functions
ϕj
ψj =
ϕ
P
are smooth and satisfy 0 ≤ ψj ≤ 1 and j ψj = 1.

1
2 LECTURE 4: PARTITION OF UNITY

Next let’s re-index the family {ψj } to get the demanded P.O.U. For each j, we fix
an index α(j) so that Wj ⊂ Uα(j) , and define
X
ρα = ψj .
α(j)=α

Note that the right hand side is a finite sum near each point, so it does define a smooth
function. According to Problem Set 1 part 2 problem 4,
[ [
suppρα = suppψj = suppψj ⊂ Uα .
α(j)=α α(j)=α

Clearly the family {ρα } is a P.O.U. subordinate to {Uα }. 


It remains to prove Lemma 1.2. In particular, we want to prove the existence of
locally finite open refinement. The proof is quite geometric:
First we prove
Lemma 1.3. For any topological manifold M , there exists a countable collection of
open sets {Xi } so that
(1) For each j, the closure X j is compact.
(2) For each j, X j ⊂ Xj+1 .
(3) M = ∪j Xj .
Proof. Since M is second countable, there is a countable basis of the topology of M .
Out of this countable collection of open sets, we pick those that have compact closures,
and denote them by Y1 , Y2 , · · · . Since M is locally Euclidean, it is easy to see that
Y = {Yj } is an open cover of M .
We let X1 = Y1 . Since Y is an open cover of X 1 which is compact, there exist
finitely many open sets Yi1 , · · · , Yik so that
X 1 ⊂ Yi1 ∪ · · · ∪ Yik .
Let
X2 = Y2 ∪ Yi1 ∪ · · · ∪ Yik .
Obviously X 2 is compact. Repeat this procedure again and again, we could get a
sequence of open sets X1 , X2 , X3 , · · · . Obviously the sequence satisfies (1) and (2). It
satisfies (3) since Xk ⊃ ∪kj=1 Yj 
Remark. Such a collection of subsets is called an exhaustion of M .
Proof of Lemma 1.2. For each p ∈ M , there is an j and an α(p) so that p ∈ X j+1 \ Xj
and p ∈ Uα(p) . Since M is locally Euclidean, one can always choose open neighborhoods
Vp , Wp of p so that V p is compact and
V p ⊂ Wp ⊂ Uα(p) ∩ (Xj+2 \ X j−1 ).
Now for each j, since the “stripe” X j+1 \ Xj is compact, one can choose finitely
many points pj1 , · · · , pjkj so that Vpj , · · · , Vpj is an open cover of X j+1 \ Xj . Denote all
1 kj
LECTURE 4: PARTITION OF UNITY 3

these Vpj ’s by V1 , V2 , · · · , and the corresponding Wpj ’s by W1 , W2 , · · · . Then V = {Vk }


k k
and W = {Wk } are open covers of M that satisfies all the conditions in Lemma 1.2.
For example, the local finiteness property of W follows from the fact that there are only
finitely many Wk ’s (that correspond to j and j − 1 above) intersect Xj+1 \ X j−1 . 
We end with two questions:
• Where did we use the second countable condition in proving P.O.U.?
• Where did we use the Hausdorff condition in proving P.O.U.?

2. An application: Whitney Approximation Theorem


As another application of P.O.U., we prove the following
Theorem 2.1 (Whitney Approximation Theorem). Let M be a smooth manifold. Then
for any continuous function g : M → R and any positive continuous function δ : M →
R>0 , there exists a smooth function f : M → R so that |f (p) − g(p)| < δ(p) holds for
all p ∈ M .

In fact we will prove a stronger version of this theorem. Let A ⊂ M be any closed
set. We say a function g : M → R is smooth on A if there exists an open set U ⊃ A
and a smooth function g0 defined on U so that g0 = g on A. [As a consequence, any
function g is smooth on any single point set {p}, although it may not be smooth at p.]
Theorem 2.2 (Whitney Approximation Theorem). Let M be a smooth manifold, and
A ⊂ M a closed subset. Then for any continuous function g : M → R which is smooth
on A and any positive continuous function δ : M → R>0 , there exists f ∈ C ∞ (M ) so
that
f (p) = g(p), ∀p ∈ A
and
|f (p) − g(p)| < δ(p), ∀p ∈ M.

By taking A = ∅ we see that Theorem 2.2 implies Theorem 2.1


Proof. [The idea: approximate g by g0 near A, and approximate g by constant functions
elsewhere.] By definition, there exists an open set U ⊃ A and a smooth function g0
defined on U so that g0 = g on A. Let
U0 = {p ∈ U : |g0 (p) − g(p)| < δ(p)}.
Then U0 is open in M and U0 ⊃ A.
4 LECTURE 4: PARTITION OF UNITY

Next we construct a (nice) open cover of M \A. For any q ∈ M \A, we let
Uq = {p ∈ M \A : |g(p) − g(q)| < δ(p)}.
Then {Uq | q ∈ M \A} is an open covering of M \A.
Now let {ρ0 , ρq : q ∈ M } be P.O.U. subordinate to the open cover {U0 , Uq : q ∈ M }
of M , and define a function on M via
X
f (p) = ρ0 (p)g0 (p) + ρq (p)g(q).
q∈M

Since the summation is locally finite, f is smooth. Also by definition, f = g0 = g on


A. Moreover, for any q ∈ M one has
X X
|f (p) − g(p)| = ρ0 (p)g0 (p) + ρq (p)g(q) − ρ0 (p)g(p) − ρq (p)g(p)
q q
X
≤ ρ0 (p)|g0 (p) − g(p)| + ρq (p)|g(q) − g(p)|
q
X
< ρ0 (p)δ(p) + ρq (p)δ(p)
q

= δ(p),
where in the last inequality, the fact ρ0 (p)|g0 (p) − g(p)| < ρ0 (p)δ(p) follows from the
facts that if p ∈ U0 , then by definition |g0 (p) − g(p)| < δ(p), while if p 6∈ U0 , then
ρ0 (p)=0; the fact ρq (p)|g(q) − g(p)| < ρq (p)δ(p) follows from a similar argument. 

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