Top de Rham cohomology of a compact connected oriented manifold Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
For a compact connected oriented boundaryless -dimensional smooth manifold, choose a Riemannian metric. Harmonic functions are constant because , and Hodge star commutes with the Hodge Laplacian. Thus the Hodge star operator identifies the constant functions with the harmonic differential forms of top degree, exactly . The Hodge decomposition theorem identifies these with the top de Rham cohomology. The metric volume form has nonzero class by Stokes theorem. The harmonic-representative theorem is stated in Denis Auroux's Hodge theory lecture.
Tubular neighborhood theorem 2026-10-14
A smooth embedded submanifold has a neighborhood diffeomorphic to a neighborhood of the zero section of its normal bundle, with the zero section identified with the submanifold. One may prescribe the normal-bundle splitting of the derivative along that section. Choose a Riemannian metric making the splitting orthogonal and use its normal exponential map: its derivative there is the required isomorphism, so the inverse function theorem supplies local diffeomorphisms. A sufficiently small, possibly varying, fibre radius makes these fit into a tubular neighborhood.
Upward stability of Riemannian completeness 2026-10-07
Pointwise domination of Riemannian metrics gives domination of their distances. A Cauchy sequence for the larger distance is Cauchy for the complete smaller one. Smooth positive metrics induce the same manifold topology, so its limit is also a limit in the larger distance. The Hopf-Rinow theorem turns metric completeness into geodesic completeness. Mere positivity of the second metric, without domination, is insufficient.
Wedge product of differential forms Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The wedge product combines a degree- differential form and a degree- differential form into one of degree . It is associative and graded-commutative:In particular, and . For planar vectors ,This determinant is the signed area of their parallelogram. Exchanging the edges reverses the sign; parallel edges give zero. Thus antisymmetry records the geometry of oriented area rather than adding an arbitrary algebraic convention. The wedge product of differential forms requires no Riemannian metric to define it. It obeys the graded Leibniz rule under the exterior derivative.
Weyl law 2026-10-14
For the positive scalar Laplace-Beltrami operator on a closed -dimensional Riemannian manifold, the number of eigenvalues at most , counted with multiplicity, has the displayed leading asymptotic. The exponent determines the dimension and the coefficient determines the total volume of the Riemannian metric. There is an analogous result with fixed Dirichlet boundary conditions or Neumann boundary conditions on a compact smooth domain.