Use integral homology throughout. The singular chain group is free on the continuous maps from the standard -simplex to . Since the boundary operator preserves chains lying in , these form a chain subcomplex. The relative chain complex and its relative homology are
The short exact sequence of chain complexes gives the long exact sequence in relative homology.
A sufficient hypothesis for the quotient comparison is a nonempty good pair: is closed and has an open neighbourhood which admits a deformation retraction onto while fixing throughout. A CW pair is another standard sufficient setting. These hypotheses hold for a simple closed curve in the surface here, using its annular collar neighbourhood. The induced quotient map collapses to a point .
Here is the proof of the collapsing a pair theorem. Put . The deformation retraction makes , so the long exact sequence of the triple gives . It also contracts onto , giving . Because is closed inside the open neighbourhood , excision gives
Similarly, excision of the closed point in the open set gives
The quotient map restricts to a homeomorphism between the two punctured pairs, so these are the same groups and the identifications commute with . Finally , including degree zero. Thus
The neighbourhood condition is part of the result; the quotient assertion is not made for arbitrary bad pairs.
For the genus-two closed orientable surface with its chosen orientation, , , , with higher groups zero. The curve has . Its relevant long exact sequence in relative homology is
The final map is an isomorphism because both spaces are connected. Consequently and ; all relative groups above degree two vanish. The quotient topological space is connected, so its unreduced is .
In the separating case, the curve is the oriented boundary of one of the two subsurfaces. Its homology class in is therefore zero, so . The exact sequence becomes
The first sequence splits since its quotient is a free abelian group. Hence the homology after collapsing a separating surface curve is
Geometrically, collapsing the boundary of each once-punctured torus fills its puncture with a cone on the circle, which is a disk. The quotient is a wedge sum of two tori at the collapsed point. Their two independent fundamental classes explain the extra second-homology generator.
In the nonseparating case, join the two new boundary components of the cut surface by an arc. Upon regluing, this supplies a closed curve meeting once transversely. The signed intersection pairing on an oriented surface therefore provides an integer homomorphism taking to . Thus is a nonzero primitive homology class, and is an injection onto a direct summand. Its kernel is zero and its cokernel is . The same exact sequence gives . Therefore the homology after collapsing a nonseparating surface curve is
Another description starts from the genus-one surface with two boundary circles. Collapse those two circles separately to obtain a closed torus with two marked points, then identify the two points. Identifying two distinct points in a connected CW complex adds a loop up to homotopy, so this quotient has the homotopy type of . The preceding relative homology calculation proves the groups without requiring that homotopy description.
The multiplicative norm first rules out zero divisors: if and , then forces . If the dimension is zero the claimed bound already holds, so suppose it is positive.
It is worth checking that the printed description of a ring with an underlying real vector space really permits differentiation of multiplication. This follows from the norm identity even if compatibility with real scalars is not separately stated. For fixed , the map is additive by distributivity, and
It is therefore continuous. Additivity gives rational linearity. Approximating a real number by rationals and using continuity proves for every real . The same argument holds in the other variable. This is automatic real bilinearity from a multiplicative norm, so multiplication is a bilinear map between finite-dimensional vector spaces, and hence is smooth.
Let be the unit sphere of the given positive-definite bilinear form. It is a copy of . The squaring map
is well defined because , and is smooth. Commutativity gives its derivative
For and , the norm identity gives , so the derivative is injective, including on the tangent space . It takes tangent vectors into since maps the sphere to itself. Alternatively, polarization of gives , so directly.
The only identifications under squaring are antipodal:
The factorization uses commutativity, and the last implication uses the absence of zero divisors. Conversely . It follows that induces an injective smooth map
The antipodal quotient map is a local diffeomorphism, so the injectivity of implies injectivity of . Since Real projective space is compact, the stated compact injective immersion is an embedding theorem makes a closed embedding.
For its source and target have the same dimension . The inverse function theorem makes its image open as well as closed in the connected sphere . It is nonempty, so the image is the whole sphere; consequently is a diffeomorphism. But for this is impossible:
Indeed, the antipodal two-sheeted covering map has simply connected total space in this range, and is its universal cover, with deck group . A sphere of dimension at least two is simply connected. These fundamental groups cannot be those of homeomorphic spaces.
We have obtained the dimension bound for a commutative Euclidean normed algebra:
The real numbers and complex numbers with their usual products and Euclidean norms attain dimensions one and two. In dimension two, the induced map is entirely compatible with the argument: the circle squaring map identifies exactly the two antipodal preimages. We neither assume a multiplicative identity nor use a classification of real division algebras; the squaring argument proves the bound from the supplied hypotheses.
For a convex subset of a Banach space, weak closure equals norm closure. The Mazur theorem states that for every convex set ,
Since every bounded linear functional is norm-continuous, the weak topology is weaker than the norm topology, giving .
For the reverse inclusion, use this form of the Hahn-Banach separation theorem: if is a nonempty norm-closed convex set in a real normed vector space and , there is a continuous real-linear functional such that
Apply it to . In a complex Banach space, use the underlying real space; every continuous real-linear is the real part of the complex bounded linear functional . The separating strict inequality gives a neighbourhood open for the weak topology of disjoint from , so . The empty set case is immediate. This proves the Mazur theorem.
A weakly null sequence has disjoint convex blocks converging to zero in norm. If , then for every starting index ,
The Mazur theorem places in the norm closure of that tail convex hull. Thus a finite convex combination of vectors from any tail can have norm less than any prescribed .
Choose the convex blocks recursively. After selecting the previous terminal index , let , and choose a finite convex combination from with norm less than . Choose beyond its largest used index, padding the intervening coefficients and the final coefficient with zero. This ensures the printed strict condition as well as . Setting unused coefficients to zero yields
Therefore in norm. The recursive tail selection is what makes these convex blocks, rather than merely unrelated convex combinations.
Next suppose is separable and is bounded. Use the canonical embedding into the bidual , where . If , then . The Banach-Alaoglu theorem makes this ball compact in , and weak-star metrizability of the dual ball makes it metrizable because its predual is separable. A compact space that is a metric space is sequentially compact, so some subsequence satisfies
The limit need not belong to ; it is precisely the use of the bidual space that supplies compactness without assuming reflexivity.
For a convex block , every satisfies
Both and tend to , so
This is the useful convex-block cancellation of a weak-star limit; it does not require the limit to be a vector in .
The quotient sequence has approximate lifts in that are weakly null after passing to a subsequence. Let be the quotient map, with the quotient norm. Since , choose such that
This uses the infimum defining the quotient norm and does not assume that it is attained. By the preceding compactness argument, pass to a subsequence with a common weak-star limit in . Its quotient images form a weakly null sequence.
Apply the convex block construction to in the quotient Banach space. Using the same coefficients on gives convex blocks
Set . The convex-block cancellation of a weak-star limit proves , while
Thus the approximate weakly null lifting through a quotient is achieved with the required bound:
Define a continuous map by the standard embedded torus of revolution parametrization
Its image lies in because
The periodicity of the trigonometric functions makes and , so is constant on every -equivalence class. The universal property of the quotient topology therefore gives a unique continuous map
Every point of has cylindrical radius between and , so its polar angle determines modulo one, while the pair on the unit circle determines modulo one. Hence is surjective, and two parameters have the same image exactly when they differ by the endpoint identifications defining ; thus it is injective.
The quotient is compact as the continuous image of the given compact space under the quotient map. The surface is Hausdorff because it has the subspace topology inherited from . The compact-to-Hausdorff continuous bijection theorem now shows that is a homeomorphism. Therefore
Choose a contraction
Apply the homotopy extension property to the initial map and to , regarded as a homotopy into . It supplies
such that
At , the map sends every point of to . It is therefore constant on the equivalence classes of the quotient topology . By the universal property of the quotient topology, there is a continuous map
such that
where is the quotient map. The homotopy immediately gives
For every , the map is constant on , because . It therefore descends to
This descended map is continuous: the product is a quotient map because is compact Hausdorff, and is constant on its fibres.
At the endpoints,
Thus
The maps and are homotopy inverses, so
This proves the theorem on collapsing a contractible cofibration.
The standard CW complex structure on has one cell in every even dimension from to , and is its -skeleton. Collapsing that subcomplex leaves one zero-cell and one cell in each dimension for . All cellular boundaries vanish, so
Let be the usual generator. For , choose whose pullback under the quotient map is . Naturality of the cup product and the cohomology ring of complex projective space give
Together with the unit, this determines the ring; equivalently, its reduced part is the ideal with the inherited multiplication. This is the cohomology ring of a collapsed projective subspace.
If , the quotient has just a zero-cell and a -cell, so it is and is a compact manifold. Conversely, suppose and the quotient is homotopy equivalent to a compact manifold. Its top cohomology is , so that manifold must be closed, orientable, and -dimensional. But while , contradicting Poincare duality. Therefore
Quotient norm 2026-10-06
The quotient norm measures the smallest norm among representatives of a coset. Its infimum need not be attained. Nevertheless, for every , an element has a representative with . The quotient map is contractive.
A quotient topological space identifies points of a topological space according to an equivalence relation and equips the set of equivalence classes with the quotient topology. A subset is open exactly when its inverse image under the canonical quotient map is open. Even a Hausdorff space can have a non-Hausdorff quotient; identifying real numbers differing by a rational number gives a multi-point quotient with the indiscrete topology.