Write for the fundamental vector field of a left Lie group action, and use throughout. Such fundamental fields satisfy . A moment map has linear components satisfying
For the action to be Hamiltonian, these components can be chosen equivariantly, or, infinitesimally,
This identifies the span of the component Hamiltonians with the Lie algebra image, rather than identifying the entire infinite-dimensional Poisson algebra with . For an actual isomorphism with , injectivity is also needed; a faithful infinitesimal action supplies it.
Preservation of alone gives , not necessarily exactness. For example, translation generated by on the symplectic two-torus has contraction , whose period is nonzero. That action has no globally defined component Hamiltonian. Once the contractions are exact, choose Hamiltonians linearly in . On each connected component of , the discrepancy
is constant: apply and the fundamental-field bracket. The Jacobi identity makes a Lie algebra two-cocycle. Replacing by changes it to . Thus the exactness condition and vanishing of this moment-map equivariance obstruction are precisely the required infinitesimal conditions.
For a semisimple Lie algebra, both hold. First Cartan's magic formula gives
Semisimplicity implies , so every generator is a sum of commutators and has a globally exact contraction. This proves Hamiltonian existence for a semisimple symplectic action.
Next use the nondegenerate Killing form to define by . Antisymmetry makes skew for . The cocycle identity and invariance of imply , so is a derivation. Choose by
Then, using cyclicity of trace and ,
Hence and . Taking removes the cocycle and proves semisimple moment-map equivariance without merely invoking a cohomology theorem. For a connected group, integrate the infinitesimal equivariance along its one-parameter subgroups to obtain group equivariance. A disconnected group can require an additional discrete-equivariance check.
Use and . For an actual infinitesimal left Lie group action, define . Its fundamental vector fields obey with this convention.
Existence and its global obstruction. Preservation of the symplectic form gives . By Cartan's magic formula, is closed. Locally it equals ; globally this requires its class in to vanish. If it does for every , choose potentials linearly in and define
This gives the component Hamiltonians of a weakly Hamiltonian action. The assumption in the question does not alone guarantee a global moment map: on with , translation in preserves , but its contraction is , whose integral around the circle is nonzero. It is not an exact one-form. Thus no global real-valued component Hamiltonian exists for that circle action. The intended construction is valid locally, or globally with this exactness condition, for example if .
Matching the Lie algebra. On each connected component, the moment-map equivariance obstruction is the constant
Indeed, the identities and show that its differential vanishes. The Jacobi identity for the Poisson bracket says
Changing by a linear constant changes to . Consequently the necessary and sufficient infinitesimal condition is the cocycle must be a coboundary, so that the constants can be chosen with
Equivalently its class in vanishes. For a connected group this infinitesimal equivariance integrates to equivariance under its coadjoint action. A disconnected group can impose additional conditions. Here “coincides” means representing the specified Lie brackets; it does not guarantee injectivity when the group action has ineffective generators.
Proof using the Killing form. A nondegenerate Killing form makes semisimple. First, it is perfect: the -orthogonal complement of is the center by invariance, and the center is zero by nondegeneracy. For symplectic fields,
by Cartan's magic formula and the antihomomorphism sign. Every commutator therefore has an exact contraction. Perfectness supplies component Hamiltonians for every generator, even when is not simply connected: this is Hamiltonian existence for a semisimple symplectic action.
It remains to eliminate the cocycle, not merely to name an existence theorem. Define a linear operator on by . Antisymmetry of makes skew for . Combining its cocycle identity with invariance of gives
Choose by , possible because is nondegenerate. Since is a derivation, . Cyclicity of the matrix trace then gives
Thus , and . Taking removes , proving the required condition. This applies to semisimple Lie groups, including for , and for . It is nondegeneracy, not positive definiteness, that matters. Groups with a nonzero central Lie algebra, such as , do not satisfy this Killing-form criterion, although particular actions can still have equivariant moment maps.
The isotropic oscillator. On , put
The action , , preserves the Hermitian norm and the symplectic form, and therefore preserves . A Hermitian matrix parametrizes the Lie algebra generator . Its unitary moment map of an isotropic oscillator is
Since , direct differentiation yields
The matrix is Hermitian and corresponds precisely to ; no central defect remains. The full moment map can be identified, using the pairing with Hermitian matrices, with the rank-one matrix . The central generator gives , whose flow is . Globally , so the “ factor” refers to this central circle, rather than a literal direct-product decomposition.
The real orthogonal subgroup acts geometrically by , the cotangent lift of a diffeomorphism of . If is real antisymmetric and , then . For , this is , so its three components are the usual angular momentum .
The remaining six independent Hermitian directions can be taken as real symmetric matrices. Their moment functions span
The diagonal ones are the individual oscillator energies; their sum is . The off-diagonal ones correlate two oscillator modes. Their flows mix positions and momenta and are not cotangent lifts of the obvious spatial rotation action: for a real symmetric , and , rather than , . All nine quadratic functions commute with , since the entire unitary group action preserves the oscillator Hamiltonian.
Geometric quantization. A classical symplectic manifold supplies observables as real functions, their Poisson bracket, and Hamiltonian flows. Geometric quantization seeks a Hilbert space of quantum states and operators that encode this structure, including and a commutator corresponding to the Poisson bracket. A direct prescription cannot make every classical product become an operator product without qualification; operator ordering and the choice of physically admissible observables matter. The aim is to build the state space and operators from the geometry rather than from a preferred coordinate chart.
For prequantization, with , choose a Hermitian line bundle with a unitary connection on a vector bundle of curvature
Its first Chern class requires the integrality condition
Equivalently the symplectic period on every closed integral two-cycle is a multiple of . Conversely an integral class supplies a line bundle, and a unitary connection can be adjusted by a one-form to have the required curvature. Locally choose with ; then . Potentials differing by an exact one-form change the local phase of the section. Integrality is precisely what makes these local descriptions glue consistently.
On sections the Kostant-Souriau prequantum operator is
The curvature identity , together with , gives
Indeed the derivative part of the commutator is , the curvature part is , and the two multiplication/derivative cross terms total . These combine to the displayed operator identity. The prequantum inner product uses the Hermitian fiber metric and the symplectic volume form , with appropriate square-integrability and operator-domain conditions.
This is not yet the desired quantum state space: a prequantum section depends on all phase-space variables, whereas a wavefunction normally depends on only configuration variables. A polarization in geometric quantization is an involutive Lagrangian rank- subbundle of . Polarized sections obey along that distribution. The symplectic form vanishes on it, so its restricted curvature vanishes and these differential conditions are locally compatible.
For , the vertical polarization is spanned locally by . With , polarized sections depend only on , and the basic prequantum operators become
Only observables whose Hamiltonian flows preserve the polarization act directly on this polarized space. A generic quadratic kinetic energy does not preserve the vertical polarization, so obtaining its quantum operator needs an additional construction rather than simply restricting every prequantum operator. A compatible complex structure can instead provide a Kähler polarization, yielding holomorphic-type states, as for oscillator variables. The Blattner-Kostant-Sternberg pairing compares suitable state spaces of different polarizations and can implement some transported observables.
Finding a useful global polarization is a genuine problem: it may not exist as a nonsingular real foliation; leaf holonomy can obstruct globally nonzero flat sections; singular leaves and compact leaves impose further conditions. A metaplectic correction uses half-forms to improve the inner product and coordinate transformation law and account for familiar zero-point shifts, when its additional square-root data exist. Thus prequantum integrality, polarization, Hilbert-space completion and observable domains are separate steps, each with geometric constraints.
Applications of Stokes's theorem. For an oriented manifold with boundary and a differential form of degree ,
with the outward-normal-first boundary orientation. Locally the identity is integration by parts in a half-space; a partition of unity reduces the general manifold to that local calculation, and contributions along internal patch boundaries cancel. The Generalized Stokes theorem unifies the fundamental theorem of calculus, circulation/flux formulas and the relation between local conservation laws and conserved integrated charges.
For a charged brane with worldvolume of dimension , let be its embedding, its induced worldvolume metric, and a -form gauge potential with . Take
Under , the Wess-Zumino brane coupling changes by . It is invariant for a closed worldvolume, or for suitable boundary conditions; open branes can require compensating boundary terms.
For an embedding variation , differentiation of the pullback and Cartan's magic formula give
Thus the interior force depends only on the gauge field strength. In components, define the worldvolume wave-map/mean-curvature vector by
Varying the area term and integrating by parts gives . Combining the two variations yields the field-strength force on a charged brane equation
It is gauge invariant because no longer occurs. Its tangential projection vanishes identically by antisymmetry, consistently with worldvolume reparametrization invariance. At , the chosen Lorentzian worldline convention has in proper time and recovers the usual Lorentz-force sign.
For topological conservation, let the spatial manifold compactify to a closed oriented -manifold , and let a field take values in a closed oriented -dimensional target with normalized volume form , . Then
This is the degree of a map between oriented manifolds: for a regular value it is the signed sum of inverse images. To relate the integral to that count, use a normalized target form supported near a regular value and change variables on its inverse-image neighborhoods. Any two normalized top forms on a connected closed oriented target differ by an exact form, whose pulled-back integral vanishes by the Generalized Stokes theorem. Hence the value is independent of this localization and equals the integer signed count.
If varies smoothly in time, its spacetime pullback satisfies . Apply Stokes theorem to the spacetime slab between two slices: the difference of their charges is minus the flux through the spatial boundary. With no flux at infinity, is conserved independently of the field equations. Equivalently a smooth homotopy cannot change the degree. Singularities, altered boundary conditions or nonzero boundary flux are the ways the argument can fail.
For the Skyrme model, finite-energy fields approach at spatial infinity, so compactifies to and . With the conventional target orientation choose
This is a normalized closed target volume form. The resulting topological baryon number in the Skyrme model is
The corresponding identically conserved spacetime current is in oriented flat coordinates. For the hedgehog with and , substitution gives
The Skyrmion therefore supplies a concrete topologically conserved unit charge. Topological conservation alone does not guarantee a stable finite-size static solution: the positive Skyrme term, with four derivatives, opposes collapse of the two-derivative energy. Under size rescaling, these contributions behave as and , allowing a nonzero equilibrium size while preserving the degree.
Let be the local flow of a vector field . The Lie derivative of a differential form is . We prove Cartan's magic formula
Both sides are degree-zero derivations of an algebra on the exterior algebra of differential forms. They agree on a function , since . They also agree on : pullback commutes with the exterior derivative, so , while . Locally every differential form is a sum of products of functions and coordinate differentials, proving the identity in every degree.
For a compactly supported Hamiltonian vector field , take the convention . Since , Cartan's magic formula gives , so its complete flow of a vector field consists of symplectomorphisms. Given and , a bump function lets us choose a compactly supported with , and hence . Choose such fields for a basis of . Their successive small-time flows give a map with invertible derivative at the origin. The inverse function theorem makes the orbit of open. Every orbit is open; because is connected, there is only one orbit. Thus the compactly supported symplectomorphisms act transitively on points, by Hamiltonian transitivity on a connected symplectic manifold.
On the unit sphere, the standard symplectic area is . The equator has complementary disks of areas , whereas the latitude at height has complementary disks of areas : the cap above height has area . A symplectomorphism must preserve the unordered pair of complementary areas. Therefore no such symplectomorphism exists, by complementary areas obstruct symplectic equivalence of separating curves.
Figure 1.
Complementary sphere areas distinguish the equator from the latitude at height one half
. Details.
On a bosonic configuration, the target-space supersymmetry transformation changes the fermionic coordinate by , where is a background Killing spinor. A kappa symmetry convention is
The configuration preserves a supersymmetry if this change can be cancelled by a local kappa symmetry transformation. Multiplying by proves necessity of
Conversely, if this holds, choosing cancels the variation. Reversing the brane orientation reverses the corresponding kappa symmetry projector.
The preserved parameters must solve this equation everywhere on the brane and satisfy the background Killing spinor equations. Thus the fraction of all thirty-two eleven-dimensional supersymmetries is
One traceless constant kappa symmetry projector in flat space preserves sixteen parameters. Further independent commuting projectors often halve that number again, but a position-dependent projector requires a common global solution; its pointwise rank alone does not determine the answer. To quote a fraction of the background supersymmetry, divide instead by the number of its Killing spinors.
For the supermembrane, let be the embedding in eleven-dimensional superspace. Define the pulled-back supervielbein, the induced worldvolume metric, and induced gamma matrices by
For a chosen orientation,
The Clifford algebra shows that ; in an orthonormal membrane frame this reduces to . Its trace is zero, so its two eigenspaces each have real dimension sixteen.
The full supermembrane action in an on-shell eleven-dimensional supergravity superspace is
Here is the super-three-form and denotes the pullback of a differential form. Its bosonic restriction is the ordinary supergravity potential, but its fermionic components are retained in this action. The magnitude of its Wess-Zumino brane coupling equals the membrane tension; the sign fixes the orientation and the matching sign of . In flat superspace one may take , with the super-three-form chosen to obey the standard supergravity superspace constraints. Thus this is a fermionic, kappa symmetry-invariant action, rather than merely its bosonic truncation.
To construct an ordinary calibration, first take a flux-free static background with a unit covariantly constant spinor . In a compatible orientation and mostly-plus Clifford algebra, the membrane spinor calibration form is
For an oriented orthonormal spatial pair , . The matrix on the right is the static membrane , a Hermitian involution, so this value is at most one, with equality precisely when . Parallel transport of the spinor and gamma matrices gives , hence .
A calibration is a closed differential form whose value on each oriented unit tangent plane is at most one; its comass is at most one. A calibrated submanifold saturates the bound, . For any homologous competitor with the same boundary, Stokes theorem gives
This proves that calibration implies volume minimization, and in particular that the membrane's spatial surface is a minimal surface. The closure condition is indispensable. A general flux-coupled Killing spinor need not produce a closed ordinary calibration; the corresponding generalized calibration bounds the full brane energy including its potential coupling. The flux-free construction above is the ordinary volume-minimizing case.
For the flux-coupled membrane, the standard spinor bilinears give a Killing vector and a two-form satisfying , in matching supergravity conventions. In a stationary gauge , Cartan's magic formula gives
This closed charge form provides the membrane generalized calibration; its potential term is what changes the volume bound into an energy bound.
In Lagrangian mechanics, let a one-parameter group on have generator . Its tangent lift acts on as
If is invariant, . Along an Euler–Lagrange trajectory, the Noether conserved quantity for a mechanical point symmetry is
because
Thus the conserved quantity is explicitly derived, not merely attached to the name of a symmetry. If the change of is the total derivative , then is conserved. For a general point transformation with time component , the conserved expression is , provided the variation of is . Time-translation invariance of an autonomous Lagrangian therefore yields conservation of energy.
In Hamiltonian mechanics, a cotangent-lifted action preserves and hence . For its infinitesimal generator , Cartan's magic formula gives
where . These components define the canonical moment map , with . If is invariant, , so . This is the Hamiltonian form of Noether's theorem, and the Legendre transform in mechanics identifies its charges with the Lagrangian ones.
More generally, a Hamiltonian group action is an action whose infinitesimal symplectic generators have globally defined Hamiltonian functions. The existence of those functions is an assumption, not a consequence of every symplectic action. For example, translation on a symplectic two-torus preserves but contraction with gives , which is closed and not globally exact. Such a symmetry need not have a globally single-valued moment-map component. On , the cotangent lift does have the canonical components just derived. A Hamiltonian symmetry preserving gives a conserved generator; the global momentum-map hypotheses must be stated.
Put , the contact distribution. If , the contact form condition is . It implies that is a symplectic form on each contact hyperplane: inserting a vector transverse to in that volume form leaves the nonzero top exterior power . Hence there is a unique smooth time-dependent vector field satisfying
Its smoothness follows by inverting the smoothly varying nondegenerate matrix of this contact distribution symplectic form. This is the horizontal generator of contact stability.
Let be the Reeb vector field of . The one-form vanishes on , so it is . Evaluating on , using and , identifies the coefficient:
By Cartan's magic formula, the Lie derivative of a differential form is
because lies in the contact hyperplane.
Let solve , with . Since is compact without boundary and is smooth on the closed time interval, its solutions cannot escape and exist for the entire interval. Reversing the time-dependent equation supplies a smooth inverse for each . Thus these flow maps give a smooth isotopy. Differentiating the pullback of a differential form along this isotopy yields
For each base point this is a scalar linear equation for a covector, initially . Its solution is
By finite-time flow completeness on a compact manifold, this construction gives the whole time interval. The contact conformal factor along an isotopy is smooth in and nowhere zero, proving Gray stability theorem. The precise domains here are and ; the extra time factor attached to the already indexed in the source is a notational slip. The proof produces the required family on its whole specified interval. If a parameter domain of all is intended, extend the smooth field slightly beyond , multiply it by a time cutoff, and use compactness to obtain the extended isotopy . Its restriction to is unchanged.
We prove the Weinstein neighborhood theorem with the canonical sign convention . The essential first step is to match the two symplectic forms as bilinear forms on the entire tangent space along , not only after pulling them back to .
Here is the needed symplectic splitting along a Lagrangian submanifold. Write and . Choose a smooth vector bundle complement of , for example using a Riemannian metric. Since is a Lagrangian subspace in every fiber, the pairing map
is an isomorphism: its kernel is , and both bundles have rank . Let be its inverse and put . Define by
and set . Nondegeneracy of the dual pairing gives a unique smooth . Since is alternating,
Thus is a smooth Lagrangian complement to . The map
is a vector bundle isomorphism, is the identity on , and satisfies
The last equality uses the canonical splitting of the tangent bundle of along its zero section.
Choose a Riemannian metric near for which is orthogonal to . The tubular neighborhood construction using its Riemannian exponential map gives a diffeomorphism
after shrinking around the zero section. It restricts to the given inclusion of and has differential along it. Consequently and agree pointwise as ambient bilinear forms at every point of the zero section.
We use the following precise relative Moser theorem. If two closed symplectic forms near a compact embedded submanifold agree as ambient bilinear forms along , then, on smaller neighborhoods, there is a diffeomorphism fixing pointwise with . One sufficient version allows a symplectic path with and as ambient covectors along : solve and use its flow. The vector field vanishes on , so the flow fixes , and compactness permits a common smaller neighborhood for the full time interval.
For completeness, all hypotheses can be checked directly here. Put and . At the zero section, every equals . The nondegenerate property is open, and compactness of allows a single smaller neighborhood on which all are symplectic forms. Choose it fiberwise star-shaped. Write and let be the vertical radial vector field. The radial homotopy primitive near a zero section
is smooth, is zero as an ambient covector along the zero section, and satisfies
The radial homotopy operator gives this identity, using and . Smoothness at follows because contraction with supplies a factor of after evaluation at ; the vanishing of along supplies additional vanishing. Therefore solve . By Cartan's magic formula, its flow maps satisfy
After shrinking the starting neighborhood, these flows exist for and fix . This is a relative local construction, not an assertion of completeness throughout the noncompact cotangent bundle.
Finally set , let be its sufficiently small domain, and let . Then
Thus the map is a symplectomorphism of neighborhoods and agrees with the specified inclusion at every point of .
Under the given rank hypothesis, the necessary and sufficient local condition is
Vanishing only at the single point would not suffice: an extension preserves the coordinate Poisson brackets throughout its domain. Necessity follows from the coordinate criterion just proved.
For sufficiency, put and . Because the symplectic form is a nondegenerate bilinear form at every point, the independent differentials give independent fields . They commute, since
Moreover , so they span the tangent spaces of the -dimensional fibres of the submersion . Choose a local section transverse to those fibres. Its joint local flow defines coordinates by
The inverse function theorem makes a local diffeomorphism, and commuting flows give .
In these coordinates . Each flow preserves the symplectic form, by Cartan's magic formula. Thus its coefficients are independent of , and
where is a closed differential two-form on the base. On a small ball, the Poincaré lemma gives , with . Define
Then
Consequently the original coordinates are extended to the required canonical transformation , with the prescribed first half . Its Jacobian matrix is invertible by construction. This is the canonical completion of independent commuting functions. For the printed data, the flows and resulting canonical transformation can be taken , which is sufficient to preserve the symplectic form; smooth data give smooth coordinates.
The Arnold-Liouville theorem concerns a connected compact component of a regular common level of commuting independent smooth functions on a -dimensional symplectic manifold. It states that is a Lagrangian torus, and that a neighbourhood of has action-angle variables
in which every depends only on . If or, more generally, , its Hamiltonian flow satisfies
Angles have period here. The theorem is local near this regular compact component; it does not assert globally defined action-angle variables across singular levels or over an entire base with monodromy.
First, has dimension of a manifold by the submersion theorem. The Hamiltonian vector fields are independent, tangent to , and commute. They span . Moreover
so is a Lagrangian submanifold. Compactness makes these restricted vector fields complete. Their joint flow is an -action on . Its orbits are open because the fields span , so connectedness gives one orbit. The stabilizer of a point is discrete by the inverse function theorem, and
Compactness forces to be a full-rank Euclidean lattice: otherwise an unbounded linear coordinate transverse to its span would descend to the quotient. Thus is an -torus.
Next choose a small ball of regular values near and a neighbourhood of this component which is a product family of compact tori . This local trivialization follows directly by choosing transverse vector fields with and lifting short radial paths in the base; compactness of gives a uniform neighbourhood where their flows exist. Hence deformation retracts onto . The commuting joint flows on nearby fibres have smoothly varying full-rank Hamiltonian period lattices. A basis of their periods can be chosen smoothly on this small ball: continue the return equations from a basis at the central fibre, using their nonsingular vertical flow derivatives and the implicit function theorem. No global choice of lattice basis is needed.
Because and retracts onto , its closed symplectic form is exact on . Choose a one-form with . Let be the smoothly continued cycles represented by the period basis and define the action integrals
For a transverse variation of the fibre, differentiating a cycle integral and using Cartan's magic formula eliminates the integral of the exact term. With the cycle parametrized by the joint-flow time , this gives
Thus
The period matrix is nonsingular, so gives coordinates on the base. The corresponding Hamiltonian vector fields satisfy
Their time- flows return along the basis cycles. They commute because each is a function of the commuting . Consequently they give a free torus action on .
Choose a section over the action-coordinate ball and use this torus action to define angles . Since , the symplectic form takes the form
The closed base two-form is exact on the ball: write , , by the Poincaré lemma. Changing the angular origins by removes this term, since . This completes the construction of action-angle variables. The functions are constant on the fibres, so are functions of alone, and Hamilton's equations give the claimed straight-line motion. This proves both the topological and symplectic parts of the Arnold-Liouville theorem.
Fix the convention for a Hamiltonian vector field. Nondegeneracy of the symplectic form gives one unique smooth for each smooth real-valued function . Define the Poisson bracket by
In coordinates with , this is . Thus the sign convention is explicit and agrees with the usual coordinate Poisson bracket. By Cartan's magic formula, . The contraction–Lie derivative commutator identity now gives
Hence the Hamiltonian Lie algebra homomorphism is . It is linear and onto the space of Hamiltonian vector fields by definition. For completeness, the Jacobi identity for the bracket on functions follows from closure of : evaluating on and using the displayed commutator relation gives the cyclic Jacobi sum zero. Thus this really is a map of Lie algebras, not just a bracket-preserving notation.
Its kernel is determined by nondegeneracy:
On a connected manifold these are precisely the real constants; on a disconnected manifold the constant may differ on each component. Therefore the quotient by these functions is isomorphic to the Lie algebra of Hamiltonian vector fields. The printed “homeomorphis” is interpreted as homomorphism: the map before taking this quotient is not an isomorphism because of its nontrivial kernel. The alternative convention requires a corresponding bracket sign change to retain this homomorphism.
A symplectic vector field satisfies , so its local flow consists of symplectomorphisms. By Cartan's magic formula and , this is equivalent to the differential one-form being closed. In the convention fixed above, a Hamiltonian vector field satisfies for a globally defined smooth function . It is therefore a symplectic vector field, but the converse requires this closed one-form to be exact.
On the torus with ,
Thus is a symplectic vector field. The closed differential one-form is not exact on the torus: its integral on the loop , , equals one, while the integral of an exact one-form around any closed loop is zero. The vector field is symplectic but not Hamiltonian. The local candidate does not descend to a single-valued function on .
The Hamiltonian flow of solves
Compactness and the absence of a boundary make this smooth vector field complete, so the flow exists for all real . The defining equation and Cartan's magic formula give
Therefore the pullback of a differential form differentiation rule yields
so . Pullback commutes with the wedge product of differential forms, and consequently
Thus the flow preserves the symplectic volume, in fact the entire symplectic form.
Moser's trick turns variation of symplectic forms into an equation for a time-dependent vector field. Let , , be a smooth path of symplectic forms on a compact manifold without boundary, with a constant de Rham cohomology class. Choose a smooth family of one-forms such that . Such a smooth choice can be made using a fixed auxiliary metric; the essential requirement is this exactness throughout the path.
Nondegeneracy uniquely determines by
Let be its flow, with . Compactness ensures existence over the whole parameter interval. By Cartan's magic formula,
Thus
The path is made constant by a diffeomorphism moving with . Every interpolating form must be nondegenerate; equal endpoint cohomology alone does not ensure that every linearly interpolated form is a symplectic form. On a noncompact manifold one instead needs completeness of this flow, or restricts to a sufficiently small neighborhood, as in the local argument below.
The assertion requires . As printed, it also includes , where the nonzero constant function is closed but cannot be the exterior derivative of a negative-degree form. The zero constant is harmless; below we prove the intended positive-degree result.
Set , let , and let
The polydisc is preserved by these dilations. The radial homotopy operator is
Here is the interior product of a differential form. For a smooth -form, its pulled-back contraction is , so the integral and its coefficient derivatives converge at zero. The identity for a pullback of a differential form along the radial flow and Cartan's magic formula give
Integrating yields . The final pullback vanishes in positive degree; since , we have .
Each is a holomorphic map, so its pullback of a differential form preserves bidegree. Contracting with the part of lowers by one, and contracting with its part lowers by one. Therefore the primitive has precisely the permitted types:
This is a type-preserving refinement of the Poincaré lemma; when one index is zero, the corresponding negative-degree summand is simply absent.
Define the Lie derivative of a differential form by , using the local flow. The pullback of a differential form respects the wedge product of differential forms and commutes with the exterior derivative. Therefore is a derivation of an algebra of degree zero and commutes with .
Let , where is the interior product of a differential form. The graded product rules for and show that their anticommutator is also a degree-zero derivation of an algebra: the two mixed terms cancel. Since , it commutes with . On a function , and . Hence .
In a manifold chart, every differential form is a sum of functions times products . The two derivations agree on its generators and , and therefore agree on every such form. This proves Cartan's magic formula, including the case :
The Jacobian determinant of is , while every coordinate and every coordinate differential is multiplied by under . Hence the pullback of a differential form operation gives
To compare directly with Cartan's magic formula, note and compute
The first two differentiated terms vanish because their coordinate differentials repeat; the last contributes . Also
Their sum is , as required. Equivalently the divergence of relative to the standard volume form is one.
Use Cartan's magic formula. The exterior derivative and interior product of a differential form give
Thus , and the first two components cancel:
The rotation in the -plane leaves invariant, while the dilation in doubles the infinitesimal weight of , providing a geometric check of this Lie derivative.