Cotangent bundle ($T^{\ast }L$)

The cotangent bundle has the canonical one-form ${\lambda }_{(q,p)}(v)=p(d\pi (v))$ and the canonical symplectic form $d\lambda$ up to a conventional sign. Its zero section is a Lagrangian submanifold.

On a Riemann surface, a meromorphic n-differential is a meromorphic section of the $n$th power of the canonical bundle. In a coordinate it is $F(z)(dz{)}^n$, with coefficients transforming by the $n$th power of the derivative. At a ramification coordinate $w=t^e$, its pullback has order $e{\mathrm{ord}}_w\omega +n(e-1)$. At a modular cusp, the exponential coordinate gives $dz=(h/(2\pi i))dq/q$, so a weight-$2n$ form of cusp order $v$ produces a differential of order $v-n$.

A differential one-form $\theta$ is a smooth section of a vector bundle $T^{\ast }X\to X$. Its graph is its image as a section, and the projection restricts to a diffeomorphism onto $X$. Pullback of the Liouville one-form by that section equals $\theta$, making the twisted Lagrangian graph criterion immediate.

Every cotangent bundle $T^{\ast }M$ is an orientable smooth manifold even when its base is not. The intrinsic canonical one-form on a cotangent bundle ${\lambda }_{(p,\alpha )}(W)=\alpha (d\pi W)$ has $d\lambda ={\sum }_{i}d{a}_i\wedge d{x}^i$. Its $n$th wedge power is the nowhere-zero form $n!d{a}_1\wedge d{x}^1\wedge \cdots \wedge d{a}_n\wedge d{x}^n$, which defines an orientation of the $2n$-dimensional total space. Using $-d\lambda$ gives another standard sign convention; either is a symplectic form.

For coordinates $x,y$ on a smooth manifold, fibre coefficients of a cotangent space element obey $b_j={\sum }_i{a}_i\partial x^i/\partial y^j$. Thus induced cotangent bundle charts change by $(x,a)\mapsto (y(x),b)$ with smooth, invertible, fibre-linear changes. The canonical one-form on a cotangent bundle satisfies ${\sum }_i{a}_{i}d{x}^i={\sum }_j{b}_{j}d{y}^j$, and differentiating proves invariance of its exterior derivative.

For the cotangent bundle projection $\pi :T^{\ast }X\to X$, the canonical differential one-form is ${\lambda }_{(x,\xi )}(v)=\xi (d\pi (v))$. In coordinates it is ${\sum }_j{\xi }_{j}d{x}_j$. The canonical symplectic form is $-d\lambda$ in the position-first convention ${\sum }_{j}d{x}_j\wedge d{\xi }_j$.

Translation by a differential one-form $\beta$ is $(x,\xi )\mapsto (x,\xi +{\beta }_x)$. It changes the canonical one-form on a cotangent bundle by ${\pi }^{\ast }\beta$. A closed differential form gives a symplectomorphism; an exact differential form gives a Hamiltonian diffeomorphism when compact support is not required.

If $dh$ is not identically zero, translating cotangent fibers by $dh$ preserves the canonical symplectic form but changes the Liouville one-form by ${\pi }^{\ast }dh$. Any positive-dimensional smooth manifold has a suitable nonconstant bump function in a chart. In dimension zero every differential one-form is zero, so this distinction cannot occur.

For a diffeomorphism $f:X\to X$, its cotangent lift isIt preserves the canonical one-form and therefore the canonical symplectic form. Cotangent lift is functorial under composition.

If $x=\chi (x^{\prime })$ is an angular diffeomorphism and $\eta \cdot dx$ is a closed differential one-form, the map $y=\eta (\chi (x^{\prime }))+D\chi (x^{\prime }{)}^{-T}{y}^{\prime }$ is a symplectomorphism. It combines a cotangent lift of a diffeomorphism with translation by a closed differential one-form. In particular $\eta =du+a$ is allowed on a torus even when the constant one-form $a\cdot dx$ is not exact.

A diffeomorphism of the entire cotangent bundle preserving the Liouville one-form is the cotangent lift of a diffeomorphism of the base. It preserves the zero section and the Liouville vector field, hence commutes with the cotangent fiber-dilation flow. The limit as the fiber contracts forces it to cover its restriction to the zero section. Evaluation of the preserved one-form then forces the inverse-transpose derivative action on each covector.

For a submanifold $Y\subseteq X$, its conormal bundle consists of covectors annihilating $TY$. A cotangent lift sends $N^{\ast }Y$ to $N^{\ast }f(Y)$.

If $\sigma$ is a closed two-form on $X$, then $\omega +{\pi }^{\ast }\sigma$ is a symplectic form on $T^{\ast }X$, called a twisted cotangent symplectic form. Nondegeneracy follows from the horizontal-vertical block form of the canonical symplectic form.

If $\sigma =d\beta$, cotangent fiber translation by $+\beta$ gives a symplectomorphism from $(T^{\ast }X,-d\alpha )$ to $(T^{\ast }X,-d\alpha +{\pi }^{\ast }\sigma )$. Its pullback changes $\alpha$ by ${\pi }^{\ast }\beta$, so the extra two-form cancels with $-{\pi }^{\ast }d\beta$. The opposite translation gives the inverse direction, globally without compactness.

With $\omega =-d\alpha$ and ${\omega }_{\sigma }=\omega +{\pi }^{\ast }\sigma$, the one-form graph of $\theta$ is a Lagrangian submanifold exactly when $d\theta =\sigma$. Indeed its pulled-back symplectic form is $\sigma -d\theta$ and its dimension is half that of the total space. This extends graph of a closed one-form is Lagrangian.

If $[\sigma ]\ne 0$ in de Rham cohomology, a twisted cotangent symplectic form has no Lagrangian submanifold whose projection is a diffeomorphism onto the entire base. Such a submanifold would be a global one-form graph, and the twisted Lagrangian graph criterion would make $\sigma$ exact.

The graph of a one-form $\beta$ in $T^{\ast }X$ is Lagrangian exactly when $d\beta =0$. Its intersections with the zero section are the zeros of $\beta$; if $\beta =df$, they are the critical points of $f$.