Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/iii/paper-14/4/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 14 4 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-14
A rank- complex vector bundle is a smooth map whose fibers are -dimensional complex vector spaces, with local diffeomorphisms commuting with projection and linear on every fiber. Define transition functions of a vector bundle byThey are smooth and obeyon the appropriate double/triple overlaps. The structure group of a vector bundle is a Lie subgroup in which a chosen set of transitions takes values. It records allowed changes of fiber frame; different trivializations may exhibit different reductions of that group.
Using the same cocycle, glue the disjoint union of byThe cocycle makes this an equivalence relation and makes its local charts compatible. Right multiplication is well-defined because it commutes with the left gluing matrices. It is free and transitive on each fiber. These charts therefore construct the associated right principal bundle with group .
For the natural line realization, take the complex tautological line bundle . Its nonzero vectors identify with by , with projection . On the two standard charts, use and . The local frames are and , so . Normalize them using the ambient Hermitian norm:If , then . Thus the unitary transitions of the tautological line over the projective line areThese are smooth on the overlap . A Hermitian metric on a smooth complex vector bundle generally permits precisely this unitary reduction; here the ambient norm supplies it explicitly.
The corresponding principal circle bundle consists of unit vectors in the tautological line. Sending to identifies its total space with , and the right circle action is . Identify with usingIts affine-coordinate inverse on the chart is ; the other chart handles the missing pole. This gives a diffeomorphism, and the projection becomes the Hopf fibration
There is a distinction if the stated punctured-bundle identification is interpreted only as a projection-preserving diffeomorphism, rather than a fiber-linear identification. It does not determine whether the complex line is tautological or dual: for a nonzero , the unique with gives a smooth map . Locally it is inversion of a nonzero complex number. Thus punctured line bundles do not determine their duality sign.
For completeness, these are the only possible signs here. Complex line bundles over are described by the clutching construction with a loop in , reducible to , and its integer winding number determines the bundle: a zero-degree ratio has a logarithm and can be removed by changes of trivializations extending over the two disks. For winding number , the unit circle bundle has fundamental group , as the two solid-torus trivializations identify the common fiber generator and impose its th power as the equatorial gluing relation. There is a fiberwise radial deformation retraction from the punctured line bundle onto its unit circle bundle. Since retracts to simply connected , the hypothesis forces .
Consequently the allowed unitary transitions are the displayed or its reciprocal, according to the bundle's sign. For the dual, the same underlying Hopf projection has the inverse principal action . In either case the principal total space and projection are ; the purely diffeomorphic hypothesis alone leaves the circle-action sign unspecified.
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