Isometric immersion 2026-10-05
An isometric immersion is an immersion between Riemannian manifolds whose derivative preserves the inner products of tangent vectors; equivalently, . Its derivative is injective and the target may have larger dimension. A local isometry additionally requires a local diffeomorphism, so its tangent maps are linear isomorphisms. For example, a sphere with its induced Riemannian metric is isometrically immersed in Euclidean space, although its positive intrinsic sectional curvature differs from that of the ambient space.
Local isometry Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
A local isometry between Riemannian manifolds is a local diffeomorphism with . Equivalently, its differentials are isometric linear isomorphisms between tangent spaces. It preserves the Levi-Civita connection, intrinsic sectional curvature, and affinely parametrized geodesics. A map whose differentials are merely isometric injections is an isometric immersion; the local diffeomorphism requirement distinguishes these notions.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 ib Paper 4 1E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
A quadratic form on a finite-dimensional real vector space is a function for a symmetric bilinear form . Conversely recovers that bilinear form. Two quadratic forms are congruent if a linear isomorphism satisfies ; in coordinates this is matrix congruence, , with invertible.
Sylvester's law of inertia says that a real quadratic form admits coordinates in whichand the numbers of positive, negative and zero squares, , are independent of the coordinates. Here ; and are the maximal dimensions of subspaces on which the quadratic form is positive definite and negative definite, while is the dimension of its radical of a bilinear form. These numbers are the inertia of a bilinear form. The rank of a quadratic form is , and the signature of a quadratic form, in the signed-difference convention, is .
Completing squares givesThe change of coordinates is invertible, so the inertia is and the signature is . If signature is recorded as an ordered pair instead, that pair is .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ib Paper 1 9F iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
True. Use the lifted basis above and put . If , applying gives , so all . Thus the form a basis of , and takes this basis to the basis of . It is a linear isomorphism.
In fact the right inverse gives the stronger splittingFor every , write ; the first term is in the kernel and the second in . Their intersection is zero because is injective. This is a direct sum decomposition.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 115 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A smooth real vector bundle of vector bundle rank consists of a smooth manifold , a smooth projection , real vector space structures on its fibers, and local vector bundle trivializationsthat commute with projection to and are linear isomorphisms on each fiber. On overlaps the change of trivialization is , with smooth into the general linear group. The usual smooth manifold convention is Hausdorff and second countable.
For an -dimensional , take the disjoint union of its tangent spaces. A manifold chart suppliesIf is another chart, the resulting change of coordinates on the total space isThis is smooth, its inverse is the same construction with exchanged, and the fiber map is invertible and linear. Thus these charts define a smooth structure with the required bundle trivializations.
For completeness, the topology so constructed is Hausdorff: different base points can be separated downstairs, while vectors over one point can be separated inside one product chart. A countable base atlas for and countable bases for its products with give second countability. Hence the total space is genuinely a smooth manifold, not just a collection of fibers. We obtain
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 115 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The fibers must retain their base labels. In particular, a literal untagged union of fibers in is not sufficient when is not injective. Use the pullback vector bundleThis makes precise the indexed-union notation in the PDF. For a vector bundle trivialization , defineIt is a fiberwise linear isomorphism, with inverse . The transition functions are , hence smooth. They satisfy the same cocycle identities as those of and give a smooth total space of manifold dimension .
One may also see that this is an embedded submanifold of : in a bundle chart the constraint is the graph of the smooth map in the base coordinates, leaving the fiber coordinates free. Thus the chart construction agrees with its natural subspace smooth structure. No immersion or surjectivity hypothesis on is required. Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 115 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A vector bundle morphism over is a smooth map with whose restriction is linear for every . A vector bundle isomorphism is such a map with a smooth bundle-morphism inverse. Equivalently, a fiberwise bijective smooth bundle morphism is an isomorphism: in local vector bundle trivializations it is multiplication by an invertible smooth matrix, and its inverse matrix is smooth.
For a diffeomorphism , defineThe derivative is a linear isomorphism by the chain rule, since . In manifold charts, is represented by the smooth Jacobian matrix of , so it is a smooth bundle morphism. Its inverse iswhich is also smooth and fiberwise linear. ConsequentlyThis identifies the bundles over the same base ; the tangent map by itself is a map from to covering .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 140 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
There is an orientation convention in this statement: the two volume forms must be positive for one fixed orientation, as is usual in Moser theorem for volume forms. Without that convention, the stated necessity is false. For example, on an oriented two-sphere, take a positive volume form and an orientation-reversing diffeomorphism , and set . Then but . We prove the intended result with a common orientation.
If , positivity forces to preserve the orientation, and integration of the pullback of a differential form gives equality of the integrals.
For sufficiency, top-degree de Rham cohomology gives a differential form of degree with . Put . Positivity makes every a volume form. The interior product of a differential form gives an linear isomorphismThus there is a unique smooth time-dependent vector field satisfying . Since is compact, its local flow exists throughout and defines a smooth isotopy starting at the identity. By Cartan's magic formula, and since a top-degree differential form has zero exterior derivative,HenceThe zero-dimensional case, a single point, is immediate from equality of the integrals.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 140 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the decomposition into Lagrangian subspaces from part (a). The bilinear form pairs and nondegenerately: a vector in either summand annihilating the other already annihilates its own summand and hence all of , so is zero.
Choose a basis of . The linear mapis an linear isomorphism. Let correspond to the dual basis of the . Then , and the pairings within each summand vanish. Thus
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 ib Paper 1 8E b iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The restriction is injective because , and it is surjective because every image equals after decomposing . It is therefore a isomorphism, so and . Also . Hencehas all the required properties.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 ii Paper 2 19J b i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
An invariant bilinear form defines a linear mapInvariance givesso is an -homomorphism. Its kernel is a -subrepresentation of irreducible . Hence either , so , or is injective and therefore a linear isomorphism . In the latter case is a nondegenerate.
If and are two nonzero invariant forms, thenBy Schur lemma, this endomorphism is scalar, so . Cases involving the zero form are immediate. Thus any two invariant bilinear forms are proportional.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 106 1 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
A Schauder basis of a real Banach space is a sequence for which every has a unique norm-convergent expansion . Its basis projection isand its basis constant is .
For the sequence space in the question, defineConvergence in the definition of makes well defined, and uniqueness of basis coefficients makes it a linear bijection. Moreover,whereasThus is an isomorphism and, in particular, the displayed supremum really is a complete norm on .
The coordinate functional of a Schauder basis isIt is bounded because . On finite linear combinations of the , the nth partial-sum operator is the restriction of , sinceThe operators have norms at most , so the standard basis criterion shows that the dual sequence of a Schauder basis is a basic sequence in . For every and ,which is precisely in the weak-star topology.
Suppose now that is a reflexive Banach space. If did not tend to zero, approximation by finite basis blocks would give a bounded block sequence and an such that . Reflexivity gives a weakly convergent subsequence. Every fixed coordinate functional is eventually zero on a block sequence, so its weak limit has every basis coordinate zero and is therefore zero. This contradicts . Hence in norm for every , so the basis is shrinking and is a basis of .
The converse fails. The standard basis of is shrinking because its dual sequence is the standard basis of , but is not reflexive.
Top-degree de Rham cohomology 2026-10-05
On a compact connected oriented -dimensional smooth manifold without boundary, integration is a linear isomorphism . Thus two top-degree differential forms have the same de Rham cohomology class exactly when their integrals agree.