If the one-point compactification is Hausdorff and has a basis of contractible neighbourhoods at the added point, then
The Excision theorem identifies with . The contractible neighbourhoods form a cofinal family of the complements of compact , and their pair long exact sequences identify each relative group naturally with reduced cohomology. Passing to the direct limit gives the comparison. Local contractibility matters for singular cohomology; the Hawaiian earring illustrates its failure.
Homology of the complement of a smooth conic Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
The complement of a closed tubular neighborhood of a smooth plane conic has the displayed integral homology. The Excision theorem and Thom isomorphism theorem reduce the calculation to the relative long exact sequence: the ambient degree-four fundamental class restricts with coefficient one, while the degree-two map is intersection with the conic and has coefficient two. A collar neighborhood identifies the open and compact exterior homotopy equivalence types. The boundary instead has first homology , from the Gysin sequence and the normal Euler class four.
Let be the integral singular chain complex. Augment it by the homomorphism sending every point simplex to one. The homology of this augmented complex is reduced homology: for a nonempty space, it agrees with ordinary homology in positive degrees and is the kernel of . The relative homology is the homology of ; a relative cycle has boundary in , and chains differing by a boundary or a chain in represent the same class.
Excision theorem: if and , the inclusion induces isomorphisms on all relative homology groups. In particular, for a nonempty CW subcomplex , choose a neighborhood deforming onto , with the deformation fixing . Such neighborhoods exist for CW pairs. Then is contractible. The long exact sequence of a pair gives and . Excision removes and the collapsed point respectively; the resulting pairs and are homeomorphic. Consequently
Here the nonempty-subcomplex condition is the usual quotient convention in this statement. If , use the pointed cofiber with a disjoint basepoint; the literal unpointed quotient would not give the asserted degree-zero identity.
For one embedded circle, its long exact sequence of a pair reduces to
A separating circle bounds a subsurface, so its homology class is zero. A nonseparating circle has a transverse closed curve meeting it once, showing that its class is nonzero and primitive. Thus is either zero or an injection with torsion-free cokernel. The resulting possibilities are
with all other relative groups zero. These ranks determine whether the circle is null-homologous.
For , a disk boundary and a separating circle bounding a once-punctured torus have the same relative groups. The first is null-homotopic; the second is not. For a direct verification, use the surface-group presentation . Send to free generators , send to , and all remaining generators to one. The relation maps to , so this defines a homomorphism to the free group. The separating circle represents and maps to the nonempty reduced word ; it is therefore not null-homotopic. This proves the requested failure to detect nullhomotopy. There is a necessary low-genus qualification: on or , an embedded circle is nullhomologous exactly when it is nullhomotopic. On the sphere every circle bounds a disk; on the torus every essential embedded circle is nonseparating. The printed nondetection assertion therefore needs .
For two disjoint embedded circles let be the rank of their image in , and let be the number of connected components of the cut surface. Removing open annular neighborhoods and applying excision gives the compact cut surface relative to its boundary. Poincare-Lefschetz duality gives and , which is free. Thus there is no hidden torsion. The long exact sequence gives , and the Euler characteristic of the pair is , giving
The possibilities are : two separating circles give zero; a nonseparating circle with a disk boundary, or two parallel essential circles, give one; circles around two different handles give two. For genus zero only occurs; for genus one occur; for every genus at least two all three occur. This is relative homology of a surface modulo disjoint circles.
The Excision theorem for singular homology states that if and , inclusion induces isomorphisms for all . For an open cover , its small-chain form says that the subcomplex of singular chains whose individual simplices lie in or computes . Concretely, repeated barycentric subdivision puts each finite chain in that subcomplex, and subdivision is chain-homotopic to the identity. There is then a short exact sequence of chain complexes
Its long exact sequence in homology, with excision identifying the last complex's homology with , is the Mayer–Vietoris sequence:
The Real projective space is a circle. The projective plane has one cell in each dimension , with cellular homology boundary maps and . Thus, writing , we have , and for . Cover the circle by two open arcs with a two-component intersection and multiply this cover by the projective plane. In the Mayer–Vietoris sequence the overlap-to-cover map is
Its kernel and cokernel are each . Consequently for . In degree one the quotient is free, so this sequence splits; in degree two it identifies the group directly with . The integral homology of a circle times a real projective plane is therefore
Without a compactness restriction, the answer to the final existence question is yes: there is a noncompact oriented four-manifold. Explicitly, take
The involution is free and reverses orientation on both and , hence preserves their product orientation. Its quotient is consequently an oriented three-manifold, the orientable total space of the orientation line bundle of the projective plane. The contraction is a deformation retraction onto , so .
If a closed oriented manifold is intended, the answer instead is no. A closed connected oriented -manifold has and no homology above . Here the highest nonzero positive-dimensional homology is the torsion group , so no dimension can supply that required top fundamental class. The distinction is necessary because the printed wording does not require the oriented manifold to be closed or three-dimensional.
Define compactly supported cohomology by
For , the transition map is induced by the identity map of pairs . Equivalently, take the cochain complex of singular cochains that vanish on every chain contained in the complement of some compact set. Directed unions are exact, giving the same definition.
For , the intervals , , are cofinal among compact subsets. The complement has two contractible components. The long exact sequence in relative cohomology contains the diagonal map , so its cokernel is , and all the other relative groups vanish. Enlarging the interval preserves the generator given by the difference of the two ends. Therefore
For the compact-support comparison with a one-point compactification, write . The assumed Hausdorff one-point compactification is compact; a compact subset is closed in . The Excision theorem removes from the pair , because its closure lies inside the open second member. Thus
Complements of compact subsets of are exactly the open neighbourhoods of in . The hypothesis supplies a cofinal family of contractible such neighbourhoods . For every one, the long exact sequence of the pair identifies
In degree zero, this is the kernel of evaluation on the component of , identified with reduced cohomology by subtracting the constant value there. In degree one the map is surjective; in higher degrees the positive cohomology of vanishes. These identifications are natural for inclusions of contractible neighbourhoods. Passing to the direct limit proves
For the specified disjoint union of lines, a compact subset meets only finitely many components and is bounded in each. Finite unions , with finite, are cofinal. Applying the preceding relative calculation componentwise gives
The one-point compactification of this space is the Hawaiian earring: each line becomes a circle by adding the common point , and every neighbourhood of contains all but finitely many whole circles. On the remaining finitely many circles it contains neighbourhoods of the common point. This describes exactly the shrinking-circle topology. In particular is not locally contractible at : every such neighbourhood contains a whole circle, whose generator remains nontrivial under the retraction that collapses all the other circles.
For integral singular cohomology, the comparison does not hold. Here is a degree-two obstruction that takes account of the shrinking-circle topology. The standard rational summand in Hawaiian earring homology theorem gives a direct summand in . The universal coefficient theorem for cohomology injects
The summand therefore contributes the nonzero Ext of the rationals with integer coefficients.
For completeness, this last algebraic assertion has an explicit proof. Present using generators and relations , . The corresponding free resolution shows that is the cokernel of
The constant sequence is not in the image. Otherwise iteration would give
For large , the factorial sum exceeds but is less than , making that congruence impossible. Thus the cokernel is nonzero. It follows that
which proves the failure of the claimed isomorphism. The ingredient concerning the Hawaiian earring is its singular-homology structure theorem, not the homology of an infinite CW complex wedge of circles; these topologies differ.
The degree and its local signs. Orient and let generate its top reduced homology . The mapping degree is the integer characterized by
For this is the usual top homology definition using the fundamental class; using reduced homology also covers .
Suppose is smooth and is a regular value. Each has invertible tangent map , so the inverse function theorem makes discrete. It is also closed in the compact sphere, hence finite. Choose disjoint small neighborhoods of these points on which is a local diffeomorphism. The Excision theorem identifies the source local homology with the direct sum of one copy of for each inverse image. The induced local map is multiplication by or according as preserves or reverses orientation. The map from the global fundamental class to these local orientation classes therefore proves the degree as a sum of local degrees formula:
Here the determinant is computed in positively oriented tangent bases. Thus the mapping degree counts inverse images with signs, rather than just their cardinality.
The quotient map. Put and write . Give its standard orientation and its boundary the induced orientation. The connecting homomorphism
is an isomorphism: the disk has zero positive reduced homology. It sends the relative fundamental class to . If the map on relative homology induced by multiplies this class by , naturality gives
Thus . Collapsing the boundary gives a sphere , and the quotient map identifies its top reduced homology with the top relative homology of the disk pair. Give this quotient sphere the orientation determined by that identification. The relation now shows
This is the quotient-sphere degree identity.
The graph intersection. Orient by the product orientation, orient by its first factor, and orient the graph of a function by . An intersection is precisely a zero of , and no such zero lies on the boundary because . At an intersection, transverse intersection means that is surjective, hence invertible. The zeros are consequently isolated and finite.
For the smooth intersection number use the ordered tangent spaces first and second. Relative to the product basis their concatenated basis has matrix
Its determinant is , so the intersection sign is . By the same local Excision theorem argument, now in relative homology at the interior point , the sum of these signs equals the multiplier of on . Therefore the graph intersection formula for mapping degree is
If the tangent spaces are ordered first and second, every sign changes by ; the order above specifies the appropriate convention.
Figure 1.
Three transverse graph intersections with signs plus, minus, plus and total degree one
. Details.
The one-dimensional model on illustrates the graph intersection formula for mapping degree: its three zeros have signs , and its endpoint map has mapping degree on reduced homology.
Euler number and self-intersection. Orient the rank-two normal bundle by the orientations of and : the ordered tangent and normal spaces have the ambient orientation. Choose a smooth normal section transverse to the zero section. Its zeros are isolated, and their signed number is the evaluation of the Euler class on the fundamental class. Scale the section sufficiently small to lie in a tubular neighborhood. Its graph is a push-off isotopic to .
The intersections of with occur exactly at the zeros of . In a positively oriented local splitting , the basis formed from the tangent spaces to and to the graph has block matrix
Its determinant is , so the local intersection sign is precisely the local zero index of the section. Summing proves the Euler number equals self-intersection identity
The conic. The given map is the degree-two Veronese map followed by the projective linear transformation
The Veronese map is injective with nonvanishing differential: on the chart its coordinates are , and on they are . It is therefore a smooth embedding, and is a smooth plane conic diffeomorphic to . Its equation in the given coordinates is .
Let be a projective line, with its complex orientation. The cohomology ring of complex projective space gives in . The hyperplane meets at and . The zeros of are simple in the respective local coordinates, and complex intersections have positive signs. Hence , so . The self-intersection number and the normal Euler class are
where has .
The boundary of the tubular neighborhood. Write for the closed disk tubular neighborhood and for its boundary. This distinguishes the disk neighborhood from the vector normal bundle . The space is the oriented circle bundle of , with Euler class . The Gysin sequence contains
The middle map is multiplication by four, yielding and . The same Gysin sequence gives . The total space is a closed connected oriented three-manifold, so Poincare duality gives
The exterior. Work first with . A collar neighborhood of shows that its interior, the requested , has the same homotopy equivalence type: push the boundary a small positive distance into the collar. The Excision theorem and Thom isomorphism theorem identify
Only degrees two and four are nonzero, each a copy of .
In degree four the map sends the ambient fundamental class to the relative fundamental class of . Under the Thom isomorphism theorem this becomes . Thus this map is multiplication by one with compatible orientations. The long exact sequence in homology gives
so .
In degree two, the Thom isomorphism theorem identifies the map with intersection against . A projective line intersects the conic twice, so this map is multiplication by two. The long exact sequence in homology is
It yields and . In degree zero the relative groups vanish, so . This computes the homology of the complement of a smooth conic:
The normal Euler number , the degree-two intersection map and the degree-four restriction map play different roles; distinguishing them explains why the boundary has first homology while the exterior has first homology .
Choose the intersection point as the zero-cell. Let be the horizontal one-cell and the vertical one-cell . The usual CW complex structure on the torus has one two-cell attached by the word , and the extra disk gives a two-cell attached along with degree one. Collapsing leaves one zero-cell , one one-cell , and the two two-cells . The cellular boundary formula gives
Therefore
The Excision theorem says that if and , then inclusion induces
It lets us compute local homology in arbitrarily small neighborhoods.
Let be the image of . At a point of , a neighborhood is a disk, whose link is a circle. At a point of , three half-disks meet along their diameters, and the link is a Theta graph, with first homology . At , the two folds created by collapsing the horizontal circle give a dumbbell graph as link: two circles joined by an interval. Its first homology is again . The local homology from a link therefore gives
Because local homology is invariant under a homeomorphism, every self-homeomorphism of preserves the rank-two locus .
It must also preserve . Indeed, is the unique point of whose sufficiently small local link is a dumbbell graph; every other point of has a theta-graph link. The connecting edge of a dumbbell graph is a bridge in a graph, whereas no edge of a theta graph is a bridge, so these local topological types are distinct.
The long exact sequence in homology of the triple contains
Because is a homotopy equivalence, . Hence the middle map is an isomorphism in every degree:
The Excision theorem says that if and , then inclusion induces
A good pair has closed and a neighborhood that deformation retracts onto . The collapsing a pair theorem states that the quotient map gives
To prove it, choose such a neighborhood . The first result identifies with . Excision identifies the latter with , while is contractible because the deformation retraction can be chosen relative to using the homotopy extension property. The long exact sequence of the pair then identifies this relative group with .
For , define by
in . In the long exact sequence of the pair, the connecting homomorphism
is an isomorphism. Naturality shows that and multiply the corresponding generators by the same integer, so
Finally,
Under this identification, the map induced by is the suspension of the map induced by . By degree under suspension,
This argument proves the needed product assertion directly from the natural suspension isomorphism in reduced homology.
The point on the quotient equator has two preimages. Small discs around them become four half-discs glued along their common diameter, so a neighborhood of is the cone on a graph with two vertices joined by four edges. The Excision theorem and the local homology from a link identify
where is this four-edge graph. It is connected and has first Betti number . Hence
Singular cohomology Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
For a topological space and abelian group , singular cohomology is the cohomology of the cochain complex , where is the singular chain group. Its differential is dual to the singular boundary. This theory has relative cohomology, long exact sequences and the Excision theorem. On spaces that are not locally contractible it can differ from Čech cohomology.