Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2003/iii/paper-17/4/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 17 4 a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
False. Give a fibrewise area form. This is a rank-two symplectic vector bundle. A Lagrangian subbundle would be a real line subbundle . Real line bundles are classified by their first Stiefel–Whitney class in ; since this group vanishes for , would be trivial. A nonzero section of would therefore be a nowhere-vanishing tangent vector field on . The Hairy ball theorem rules this out: every continuous tangent vector field on an even-dimensional sphere has a zero. Hence does not even have one Lagrangian subbundle, let alone a splitting into two. Fibrewise existence of Lagrangian subspaces does not guarantee a globally continuous choice.
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