Don’t just read it; fight it!

Ask your own questions,

look for your own examples,
discover your own proofs.
Is the hypothesis necessary?
Is the converse true?
What happens in the classical special case?
What about the degenerate cases?
Where does the proof use the hypothesis?

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2

Course Information
♣ About the course:
• Instructor: Zuoqin Wang
– Email: [email protected]
– Office: 1601
• TAs:
– Yiyu Wang, [email protected]
– Yulin Gong, [email protected]
– Question Answering: Sundays 3:55-5:30pm @ 5207
• Lecture time/room: T 3:55-5:30 pm & Th 9:45-11:20 am @ 1302
• Webpage: http://staff.ustc.edu.cn/∼wangzuoq/Courses/18F-Manifolds/
• PSets: Will be posted every week on the course webpage, and will be collected
every two weeks (on Thursdays before class).
• Exams: There will be one midterm and one final exam.
• Language: We will use English in all Lectures, PSets and Exams.
• Course grades:
– Regular: HWs (30%), Midterm (30%), Final (40%)
– To get A+: An additional term paper is required. (More details after
midterm)

♦ Notes and Reference books:

Course Notes will be uploaded to the course webpage after each lecture.
We will not follow any single book. The following are some nice reference books:
• Introduction to Smooth Manifolds, 2nd ed, by John Lee
• An Introduction to Manifolds, 2nd ed, by Loring W. Tu
• Differential Topology, by Victor Guillemin and Alan Pollack

♥ Prerequisites:
• Basic Analysis: C k maps, multiple integrals, the inverse and implicit function
theorems, existence and uniqueness theory for ODEs
——c.f. Appendix C and Appendix D in Lee’s book
• Basic Topology: Topological spaces, quotient spaces, connectedness, compact-
ness, Hausdorff, second countable, continuity, proper
——c.f. Appendix A in Lee’s book
• Basic Algebra: Linear spaces, direct sums, inner products, linear transforma-
tions, matrices, groups, quotient groups
——c.f. Appendix B in Lee’s book
 3

♠ Contents:
Smooth manifolds are nice geometric objects on which one can do analysis: they
are higher dimensional generalizations of smooth curves and smooth surfaces; they
appear as the solution sets of systems of equations, the phase spaces of many physics
system, etc. They are among the most important objects in modern mathematics and
physics.
In this course we plan to cover
• Basic theory: definitions, examples, structural theorems etc.
– Smooth manifolds and submanifolds
– Smooth maps and differentials
– Vector fields and flows
– Basic differential topology
– Manifolds with special structures: Lie groups, vector/fiber bundles
• Geometry of differential forms
– Tensors, differential forms
– Exterior derivatives and integrations of differential forms
– de Rham cohomology and applications
– Geometric structures related to differential forms: Riemannian/symplectic
structures, Chern-Weil(if time permit)
 LECTURE 1: TOPOLOGICAL MANIFOLDS

1. Review of Topology
Recall that a topology on a set X is a collection O of subsets of X whose elements
are called open sets, such that
• The set X and the empty set ∅ are open sets.
• Any union of open sets is an open set.
• Any finite intersection of open sets is an open set.
As usual, the complement of an open set is called a closed set. It is easy to see that if
O is a topology on X, and Y ⊂ X, then
OY = {O ∩ Y | O ⊂ O}
is a topology on Y . This is called the induced subspace topology.
We will only study “nice” topological spaces. Recall that a topological space X is
• Hausdorff (i.e. T2 ) if for any x 6= y ∈ X, there exist open sets U 3 x and V 3 y
so that U ∩ V = ∅.
• second-countable (i.e. A2 ) if there exists a countable sub-collection O0 of O so
that any open set is a union of (not necessarily finite) open sets in O0 .
Unless otherwise stated, all spaces we are going to study in this course will be Hausdorff
and second countable. Note that if X is Hausdorff or second-countable, and A ⊂ X,
then A is also Hausdorff or second-countable with respect to the induced subspace
topology.
There are two more topological conceptions that we will frequently use in this
course: the compactness and connectedness. Recall that a subset D in a topological
space X is compact if for any collection of open sets {Uα } satisfying D ⊂ ∪α Uα , there
exists a finite sub-collection {Uα1 , · · · , Uαk } so that D ⊂ Uα1 ∪ · · · ∪ Uαk . Usually the
compactness will make our life much easier.
Finally we recall the conception of connectedness. A topological space X is said
to be disconnected if there exist two non-empty open sets U1 and U2 in X so that
U1 ∪ U2 = X and U1 ∩ U2 = ∅.
It is called connected if it is not disconnected. (If X is disconnected, then any maximal
connected subset of X is called a connected component of X.) Also we call X path-
connected if for any p, q ∈ X, there is a continuous map f : [0, 1] → X so that f (0) = p
and f (1) = q. Such a map is called a path from p to q.

4
 LECTURE 1: TOPOLOGICAL MANIFOLDS 5

Topological spaces are spaces on which one can define continuous maps. Recall
that a map f : X → Y between topological spaces is called continuous if for any open
set V in Y , the pre-image f −1 (V ) is an open set in X. Two topological spaces X and
Y are homeomorphic, if there is a continuous map f : X → Y which is one-to-one and
onto, so that f −1 is also continuous. Such a map f is called a homeomorphism. Of
course this gives us an equivalence relation in the category of all topological spaces.
A quantity (or “mathematical objects” like groups) associated to topological s-
paces that is invariant under homeomorphisms is usually called a topological invariant.
The following elementary theorem tells us that the dimension of Euclidian spaces is a
topological invariant:
Theorem 1.1 (Invariance of Domain). If U is an open set in Rn and V is an open set
in Rm , and f : U → V is a homeomorphism, then m = n.

Proof of Theorem 1.1 for n = 1. Since a homeomorphism maps a connected compo-

nent to a connected component, we can assume without loss of generality that both U
and V are connected. Suppose m > 1, and f : U → V is a homeomorphism. We take
any point p ∈ U . Then f : U \ {p} → V \ {f (p)} is also a homeomorphism. But this
cannot happen, since U \ {p} is disconnected, while V \ {f (p)} is connected! 

We will prove the theorem later in this course, using more sophisticated topological
invariants: the de Rham cohomology groups.

2. Topological manifolds
Now we are ready to define topological manifolds. Roughly speaking, topological
manifolds are nice topological spaces that locally look like Rn . (So one can try to do
analysis modelled on Euclidean spaces.)
Definition 2.1. An n dimensional topological manifold M is a topological space so
that
(1) M is Hausdorff.
(2) M is second-countable.
(3) M is locally an Euclidean space of dimension n, i.e. for every p ∈ M , there
exists a triple {ϕ, U, V }, called a chart (around p), such that U is an open
neighborhood of p in M , V is an open subset of Rn , and ϕ : U → V is a
homeomorphism.
Remark. There are many different charts near any given point p. In fact, suppose
(ϕ, U, V ) is a chart near p. Then
(1) for any open neighborhood U1 ⊂ U of p, if we denote ϕ1 = ϕ|U1 and let
V1 = ϕ(U1 ), then (ϕ1 , U1 , V1 ) is also a chart near p.
6 LECTURE 1: TOPOLOGICAL MANIFOLDS

(2) for any v ∈ Rn , if we let Vv = V + {v} and let ϕv (x) = ϕ(x) + v, then (ϕv , U, Vv )
is a chart near p.

Remark. The three conditions in the definition of topological manifold are independent
of each other. For example, two crossing lines form a topological space which is Haus-
dorff and second countable but not locally Euclidean; an uncountable disjoint union of
real lines form a Hausdorff and locally Euclidean topological space which is not second
countable. In exercise, we will see a topological space which is locally Euclidean (and
second countable) but not Hausdorff.
Remark. Both the Hausdorff and the second-countable conditions are important in
defining a reasonably nice geometric object. For example, according to the Hausdorff
property, the limit of a convergent sequence is unique (try to prove this!). We will
prove later that the Hausdorff property together with the second countability property
imply the existence of a partition of unity, which is a fundamental tool in studying
manifolds.

Now we give a couple examples of topological manifolds.

The simplest examples of topological manifolds include the empty set, any set of
countable many points, Rn itself, and open sets in Rn . Here are some more interesting
examples of manifolds.
Example. (Graphs). For any open set U ⊂ Rm and any continuous map f : U → Rn ,
the graph of f is the subset in Rm+n = Rm × Rn defined by
Γ(f ) = {(x, y) | x ∈ U, y = f (x)} ⊂ Rm+n .
With the subspace topology inherited from Rm+n , Γ(f ) is Hausdorff and second-
countable. It is locally Euclidean since it has a global chart {ϕ, Γ(f ), U }, where
ϕ : Γ(f ) → U, ϕ(x, y) = x
 LECTURE 1: TOPOLOGICAL MANIFOLDS 7

is the projection onto the first factor map. [To see ϕ is a homeomorphism: obviously
ϕ is continuous, invertible, and its inverse
ϕ−1 : U → Γ(f ), ϕ−1 (x) = (x, f (x))
is continuous.] So Γ(f ) is a topological manifold of dimension m.
Example. (Spheres). For each n ≥ 0, the unit n-sphere
S n = {(x1 , · · · , xn , xn+1 ) | (x1 )2 + · · · + (xn )2 + (xn+1 )2 = 1} ⊂ Rn+1
with the subspace topology is Hausdorff and second-countable. To show that it is
locally Euclidean, we can cover S n by two open subsets
U+ = S n \ {(0, · · · , 0, −1)}, U− = S n \ {(0, · · · , 0, 1)}
and define two charts {ϕ+ , U+ , Rn } and {ϕ− , U− , Rn } by the stereographic projections
1
ϕ± (x1 , · · · , xn , xn+1 ) = (x1 , · · · , xn ).
1 ± xn+1

It is easy to check that ϕ± are continuous, invertible, and the inverse

1 € 1 Š
ϕ−1 1 n
± (y , · · · , y ) = 2y , · · · , 2y n
, ±(1 − (y 1 2
) − · · · − (y n 2
) )
1 + (y 1 )2 + · · · + (y n )2
is also continuous.
Remark. We can also cover S n by 2n + 2 charts
using hemispheres. More precisely, for any 1 ≤
i ≤ n + 1, we let
Ui+ = {(x1 , · · · , xn+1 ) ∈ S n : xi > 0}
be the “upper hemisphere” in the ith direction and
define ϕ+ + n
i : Ui → B (1) be the projection map

ϕ+ 1
i (x , · · · , x
n+1
) = (x1 , · · · , xi−1 , xi+1 , xn+1 ),
where B n (1) is the unit ball in Rn . Then one can
check that (ϕ+ + n
i , Ui , B (1)) are charts. Similarly
one can construct charts (ϕ− − n
i , Ui , B (1)) on each
“lower hemispheres”.