For positive coordinate charts put . The metric tensor transforms by , giving . The top wedge product of differential forms transforms by . Since , the two factors match. Thus the local expressions define one global Riemannian volume form.
Fundamental form of a Hermitian manifold Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-07
For the underlying Riemannian metric and complex structure , the fundamental form is . It is a real (1, 1)-form. In complex dimension , the compatible orientation has Riemannian volume form , and its Hodge star operator satisfies
In normal coordinates , write the Riemannian volume form as and let . With the heat operator , the Gaussian times a power-series amplitude has its singular terms cancelled by the displayed radial equations for . The initial coefficient is , and
Multiplying the equation by gives the derivative of . Smoothness forces the integration constant to vanish. The integral on a fixed compact interval proves smoothness across the diagonal by induction; it yields . A truncated heat parametrix therefore has residual .
Hodge splitting of Euclidean two-forms Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
On an oriented Euclidean metric four-space, the Hodge star operator on two-forms is an orthogonal involution. Its two eigenspaces each have dimension three. A self-dual two-form has eigenvalue , while an anti-self-dual two-form has eigenvalue . The splitting uses the metric-normalized Riemannian volume form; an arbitrarily rescaled volume in the defining wedge identity would rescale the operator itself.
In an adapted real orthonormal coframe, the fundamental form of a Hermitian manifold is and the Riemannian volume form is . The complex-linear Hodge star sends each summand to the product of all the other oriented two-dimensional factors. Summation gives the displayed formula, valid for every Hermitian manifold, without a Kähler assumption.
In a positive Riemannian orthonormal frame with dual coframe , the Riemannian volume form is . Inserting in its first slot omits and produces sign , giving the displayed interior product formula.
Parallelism of the Riemannian volume form Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
The Levi-Civita connection of an oriented Riemannian manifold preserves its Riemannian volume form. In a positively oriented orthonormal frame its connection matrix is skew-symmetric. Differentiating the wedge of the dual coframe gives minus the trace of that matrix times the volume form, which is zero. Equivalently parallel transport preserves the metric and orientation, so it preserves the normalized volume form.
Use the positive Laplace-Beltrami operator . For the global discrete spectral statements, take to be a closed manifold with a smooth Riemannian metric. The Riemannian heat kernel is the integral kernel of the heat semigroup :
The initial condition is distributional with respect to the Riemannian volume form. Equivalently, an orthonormal basis of Laplacian eigenfunctions gives the spectral expansion of the Riemannian heat kernel
The usual compact elliptic spectral theorem supplies this basis; polynomial elliptic regularity bounds and exponential decay prove convergence with every space derivative on . These analytic results may be used as clearly stated external ingredients. We will also construct the kernel locally and prove its short-time expansion.
On a sufficiently small neighbourhood of the diagonal, let and write in geodesic normal coordinates, with . The heat kernel expansion has the form
The heat invariants are the integrated diagonal coefficients , so
In particular
Here is scalar curvature, is the Ricci tensor and is the Riemann curvature tensor. The last expression is the integrated second scalar heat coefficient; a local divergence term integrates to zero on a closed manifold. The exponent of the leading heat-trace term determines dimension, and these coefficients determine volume, total scalar curvature, and the displayed integrated curvature combination. On a surface , where is Gaussian curvature, so by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, and . Thus the Euler characteristic, and the genus of a connected orientable closed surface, are determined. The first three coefficients also detect constant Gaussian curvature, since they determine . These conclusions do not claim that the pointwise curvature function or the metric is determined.
Here is the local construction. Put . The Gauss lemma and the radial expression for the geometric Laplacian give, for a smooth amplitude ,
The terms cancel because . Define . The singular term disappears with , normalized by . For , cancel the remaining powers of by the heat-kernel transport equations
which have the explicit solution
This formula is obtained by differentiating along each radial geodesic. It proves smoothness jointly in , including the diagonal, by induction: the integrand is smooth on a fixed compact integration interval. A homogeneous solution of has constant along a ray, and smoothness at forces this constant to vanish for . Thus the smooth transport coefficients are unique. In particular . Expanding gives , checking the sign convention.
Choose a smooth cutoff that is one near the diagonal and supported where these normal coordinates exist, and form the heat parametrix
It tends to the identity kernel as : in normal coordinates the Gaussian is an approximate identity, and at the centre. Its residual is plus cutoff-derivative terms supported a positive distance from the diagonal. Those latter terms are smaller than every power of . Hence uniformly. Every prescribed finite number of derivatives has the same kind of estimate after increasing ; differentiating a Gaussian costs only finitely many powers of .
For large enough that the residual is continuous and bounded up to time zero, use the Volterra parametrix correction. For kernels define
Set . A bounded residual with bound gives
so this series converges and . Because has identity initial kernel, differentiating the convolution gives . Thus
is an exact kernel with the correct initial condition. Taking sufficiently large gives any required finite regularity; uniqueness of the heat equation makes the kernels obtained from different equal. For uniqueness, the difference applied to smooth initial data has zero initial value, and the energy identity forces . Parabolic regularity then gives smoothness for positive time.
The Gaussian part of has uniformly bounded spatial norm, so the correction is . This proves, uniformly near the diagonal,
with corresponding derivative estimates on increasing the truncation order. In particular on every parabolic neighbourhood it is the stated Gaussian expansion with relative remainder , and on the diagonal it yields the complete heat trace expansion. The standard off-diagonal Gaussian version on compact subsets of a sufficiently small convex normal neighbourhood follows from the same convolution estimates with the Gaussian factor retained: the inequality
localizes the convolution to the unique joining geodesic; its transverse Hessian is positive, and Gaussian integration gives the successive transport orders. The additive estimate above already specifies an appropriate uniform near-diagonal remainder without asserting a relative estimate far from the diagonal on the basis of a crude bound.
If is noncompact, use the minimal Friedrichs extension heat semigroup; if there is a boundary, specify boundary conditions. The same construction is local in the interior. One may extend a relatively compact coordinate neighbourhood to a closed auxiliary manifold; localization errors are supported a positive distance away and are exponentially small near the smaller diagonal neighbourhood. Thus the local coefficients remain the same. Finite integrated heat invariants and a discrete spectrum require the global hypotheses used above.
Use the standard boundaryless-manifold convention, so is a closed manifold. Its orientation and Riemannian metric determine a unique positive Riemannian volume form taking value one on every positively oriented orthonormal frame. In an oriented atlas it is
For the coordinate invariance of the Riemannian volume form, on an overlap put . Then and . The oriented transition has , so the square root of the metric determinant and the coordinate volume transform together. The local forms therefore agree and define globally.
For real -forms the Hodge star operator is defined by
The pointwise wedge pairing is nondegenerate, so this uniquely defines a smooth map . On an oriented orthonormal coframe, it sends a basis wedge to the signed complementary wedge. Applying it twice gives
For Hodge star eigenvalues on graded differential forms, extend complex-linearly to the direct sum of all form degrees. This interpretation matters: on a fixed degree it is an endomorphism only in middle degree. In positive odd dimension, is even for every , so and only can occur. Both occur, with eigenforms and .
In positive even dimension, is on even-degree forms and on odd-degree forms. Hence and the only possible eigenvalues are . The first two occur as above. For the latter, choose a smooth local orthonormal frame and multiply its first dual differential one-form by a nonzero smooth bump function supported in the chart. This gives a form for which and are independent. For ,
Thus all four occur. Consequently, for ,
On degree in dimension , the Hodge star has eigenvalues for even and for odd ; signed complementary middle-degree wedges show both occur for . In zero dimensions it is multiplication by the signed unit volume at each point, so only the signs actually present occur.
For Hodge integration by parts in arbitrary degree, let and . The graded Leibniz rule and Stokes theorem on the closed manifold give
Using the given codifferential and the square of the Hodge star,
Therefore
which proves that is the formal adjoint of . The complex version inserts conjugation in the usual Hermitian inner product.
The Hodge decomposition theorem gives an -orthogonal decomposition
where is finite dimensional and consists of the harmonic differential forms. Each de Rham cohomology class has a unique harmonic representative. Equivalently, with harmonic projection there is a smooth Green operator of the Hodge Laplacian satisfying .
The solvability condition for the Hodge Poisson equation is
Necessity follows from . Conversely the orthogonality condition gives , so solves the Poisson equation for differential forms.
The nonnegativity of the Hodge Laplacian identity
identifies its kernel with closed and coclosed forms. Thus the affine space of solutions of the Hodge Poisson equation is
For completeness, if a closed form is decomposed as , then , and . Hence its cohomology class is represented by . An exact harmonic form must vanish, since . This proves the canonical isomorphism , so the solution set is an affine space whose translation vector space is isomorphic to the requested de Rham cohomology.
Let , and use the complex orientation. Write for the real Riemannian metric underlying the Hermitian metric. Its fundamental form of a Hermitian manifold is
where in this convention. It is real and of type , since . Choose an adapted real orthonormal frame and its dual coframe . Then , giving the Riemannian volume form
We use the complex-linear Hodge star operator, the extension of the real metric star characterized on equal-degree forms by
It maps -forms to -forms and satisfies . It is distinct from the conjugate-linear map . In the adapted coframe the star of is the wedge product of all the other two-dimensional factors, with positive sign. Summing proves the Hodge star of the fundamental Hermitian form formula
This computation uses no closedness assumption on .
Use the integrated Hermitian inner product . The formal adjoints and are defined by and ; compact manifolds here have no boundary. The Hodge Laplacian and Dolbeault Laplacian are
The Dolbeault Hodge decomposition on a compact Hermitian manifold states that
is an orthogonal direct sum, with finite-dimensional . Each Dolbeault cohomology class
has a unique representative in . A form is harmonic exactly when both and vanish, since its Laplacian inner product is the sum of their squared norms.
Now let be the Hermitian Lefschetz operator and let be its pointwise adjoint. For of total degree and of degree , the defining inner products give
The wedge pairing is nondegenerate, so . Apply another star to the degree- form and use that the star and commute with conjugation. This yields
For degrees below two both sides vanish. The argument also identifies its bidegree as and does not require the Kähler condition.
Assume now that , so the metric is a Kähler metric. Start with the supplied Kähler identities relation . Since is real, conjugation gives , hence
The commutators are ordinary commutators because has even degree. Using we obtain, by direct expansion,
Conjugation gives as well. Expanding the two unmixed Laplacians and using gives the same operator:
Finally expand and ; the mixed terms just proved zero disappear. This derives the Kähler Laplacian identity
The Dolbeault Laplacian preserves bidegree. Thus the complex -harmonic forms of total degree split into their harmonic parts. The allowed real Hodge theorem, followed by complexification, gives
The real operator commutes with conjugation, which exchanges and . Therefore . For odd , no summand has , so they pair off in equal dimensions. This proves that all odd Betti numbers are even.
For , the Kähler form power is closed. If it were exact, say , then
by Stokes theorem. But has strictly positive integral on the nonempty compact manifold. Hence the powers of a compact Kähler form have nonzero cohomology classes, and
For an example take the Hopf surface
The dilation action is free and properly discontinuous: on a compact subset the radii are bounded above and away from zero, so only finitely many dilations can meet it. It is holomorphic, giving a complex manifold quotient; the annulus covers the quotient, proving compactness. The map
is a diffeomorphism . The Künneth theorem gives . This violates the necessary odd-degree parity, so this compact complex surface admits no Kähler metric.
Here “bumpy” means a nowhere locally homogeneous metric, not the different convention concerning nondegenerate closed geodesics. A smooth Riemannian metric has this property if every local isometry between connected open subsets is the identity on its domain; in particular, no two distinct open subsets are isometric. The Sunada local isometry lemma states that, on a compact smooth manifold without boundary of dimension at least two, such Riemannian metrics form a residual set and are dense in the topology. The dimension restriction matters: in dimension one, arclength coordinates always give nontrivial local isometries.
An element of the jet bundle of maps records the source point , target value and all derivatives through order . If and , there are derivative multi-indices of order , and components for each one. Thus
For the projection onto , the fiber has dimension . In source and target coordinates its Taylor coefficients identify it with
This is a coordinate-dependent identification for , since a change of coordinates mixes different derivative orders. For the fiber is canonically ; for higher orders, truncation to the previous jet bundle of maps is an affine bundle modeled on . For the fiber is a point.
The density assertion in the printed question requires distinct closed domains. Literally, for , the identity is an isometry for every Riemannian metric, so is the whole metric space and its complement is empty. Merely indexing the same closed ball twice has the same defect. The intended assertion is for distinct embedded closed balls and , with an isometry meaning an onto diffeomorphism preserving the metric. The proof below establishes precisely this corrected assertion.
Distinct embedded closed balls are regular closed sets, so at least one of and contains a nonempty open set. Indeed, if both were empty, taking closures would give both inclusions and hence equality. Interchange the labels if necessary and choose a nonzero nonnegative smooth bump function supported in . For any given Riemannian metric , make the localized volume perturbation
The Riemannian volume form satisfies . Therefore
If the original volumes agree, every sufficiently small makes them unequal. If they already disagree, continuity preserves that inequality for sufficiently small . An onto isometry must preserve volume, so each of these perturbed Riemannian metrics belongs to . Finally in : all derivatives of tend to zero uniformly on compact sets. This proves density of for distinct closed balls, in fact in every positive dimension. The localized volume perturbation settles this particular density claim directly. It also does not imply the stronger Sunada local isometry lemma by itself, since a general local isometry need not send one preselected basis ball onto another.
Use coordinate charts from the chosen oriented atlas. In each, the matrix of the Riemannian metric is smooth and positive-definite, so and its positive square root is smooth. Define the local Riemannian volume form by
If is another positive coordinate chart and , the transformation rule for the metric tensor is . Taking determinants gives
The oriented atlas has , so the wedge product of differential forms transformation from part (a) gives
The local expressions therefore glue to a global smooth top-degree differential form. Its local coefficient never vanishes, so it is a volume form. The global answer is in positive charts. In an arbitrary negatively oriented chart the corresponding expression needs a minus sign; the orientation is essential to the form, although a positive metric volume density exists without it.
The integral identity requires compactness of , compact support of , or suitable conditions eliminating flux at infinity. The printed question does not state such a hypothesis. We prove the Riemannian divergence theorem for a compact manifold, and more generally for a compactly supported smooth vector field on an oriented Riemannian manifold with boundary.
Write for the inclusion. Give the outward-normal-first boundary orientation, and let be the outward unit normal vector. The Riemannian volume form of the induced Riemannian metric is
Indeed, if is a positively oriented orthonormal basis tangent to the boundary, is a positively oriented orthonormal basis in . Both sides therefore evaluate to one on the boundary basis.
At a boundary point decompose , where is tangent to . Evaluating on tangent vectors, the term with vanishes: all arguments of the alternating volume form then lie in the -dimensional boundary tangent space. Thus the interior product of a differential form satisfies
The general Stokes theorem for an oriented manifold with boundary states for any smooth differential form of degree with compact support; compactness of makes the support condition automatic. Applying it to and using the defining equation for the divergence of a Riemannian vector field proves
For a concrete failure without the extra hypothesis, take with Riemannian metric and . The divergence of a Riemannian vector field is , so
because vanishes at the only boundary point. Both integrals are finite. The missing is the limiting flux at infinity, so mere integrability of the divergence cannot repair the unrestricted assertion.
Retain and define the heat operator by . A Riemannian heat kernel satisfies for and has the delta initial limit
On standard Euclidean space the kernel is
On the Riemannian manifold, the Gaussian function factor in the local construction uses in place of .
Choose an open neighbourhood of the diagonal such that every pair is joined by a unique short minimizing geodesic and with the inverse exponential map smooth in both variables. It can be obtained from normal coordinates tubes of radius smaller than the local injectivity radius, or from normal neighbourhoods with geodesic convexity. Then is smooth on . Write the Riemannian volume form in normal coordinates as , where is smooth and .
For fixed , radial divergence in normal coordinates gives
For , use away from the diagonal and the product rule to obtain
The identities extend smoothly in the expressions involving , even though itself is not smooth on the diagonal. The singular powers cancel if
The correct initial normalization is . These heat-kernel transport equations have the explicit solutions
and, recursively,
To derive the integral, multiply the radial equation by and integrate the derivative of from zero to . The zero integration constant is forced by smoothness when . Changing variables from radial distance to gives the displayed nonsingular expression. Its integrand is smooth in , so differentiation under the integral proves inductively that every is smooth across the diagonal. In particular .
Summing the product-rule identity makes adjacent terms telescope. For , the only term remaining is
This also fixes the sign convention: with the nonnegative Laplace-Beltrami operator , the right-hand side would instead be .
A heat parametrix is an approximate kernel with the same delta initial limit and an error under that is sufficiently regular, or flat, at to be corrected by time convolution. On a closed compact manifold choose a smooth cutoff equal to one near the diagonal and supported in . A finite-order explicit parametrix is
Near the diagonal its error is . Derivatives of produce errors supported a positive distance from the diagonal, where decays faster than every power of . Taking large makes the whole error as regular at time zero as any specified finite number of derivatives requires. Its initial delta limit follows from and the Euclidean Gaussian function change of variables .
One may obtain a smooth error flat at zero by summing all coefficients with time cutoffs. Let equal one near zero and zero for arguments at least one, and choose sufficiently fast. Set
For each the sum is locally finite. Choosing successively so that the th term and its derivatives through order have bounds on their cutoff transition regions gives the usual smooth asymptotic sum. For any fixed derivative order, its tail is then smaller than an arbitrarily high power of ; the transport identities cancel all earlier orders. Consequently extends smoothly and flatly to .
Here is the Volterra parametrix correction, with the order of the Volterra convolution of kernels factors specified. Define
Since acts in the second spatial variable and has the delta initial limit, . Thus
Indeed, by the geometric-series cancellation, whence . If on a bounded time interval and , then
This proves convergence; the smooth flat error permits the corresponding derivative estimates. The correction has zero initial limit, so retains the delta initial condition. Uniqueness of the heat equation on a closed compact manifold identifies this kernel with the global Riemannian heat kernel.
The local coefficient construction requires no compactness. The global uniformly bounded convolution argument just given uses a closed compact manifold, the usual spectral-geometry setting. For noncompact or incomplete Riemannian manifolds one must specify the heat realization and justify global convergence separately; a canonical choice is the minimal kernel obtained as the increasing limit of Dirichlet kernels on a smooth relatively compact exhaustion. This gives the minimal heat semigroup rather than asserting an unqualified uniqueness statement at infinity or at a missing boundary.
Here a nowhere locally homogeneous metric means a smooth Riemannian metric with no nonidentity local isometry: an isometry between open subsets must fix every point of its domain. This is the strong local-rigidity meaning of “bumpy” used in this question, not the different convention about nondegenerate closed geodesics. Sunada's local isometry lemma states that, on a closed smooth manifold of dimension at least two, such Riemannian metrics form a residual subset of the space of smooth Riemannian metrics and are dense in its topology. In dimension one this conclusion is false: arclength coordinates give local translations for every Riemannian metric.
For maps , the jet bundle of maps records the source point, the target value and all derivatives through order . There are monomials of total degree at most in variables. Hence
Over , the value is already fixed, so the fibre has dimension
In local coordinates it is the space of Taylor series coefficients of orders one through , represented by a direct sum of symmetric powers, . This direct sum identification is coordinate-dependent for : higher derivatives mix with lower ones under nonlinear coordinate changes. Intrinsically, the truncation to order is an affine bundle modeled on . For the fibre is canonically .
For the density assertion as printed, an isometry is a bijective Riemannian isometry. A localized volume perturbation suffices; it is not necessary to prove the stronger generic local-rigidity lemma afresh. We take the coordinate-ball basis without repetitions, and each as the interior of its smooth closed-ball closure. Distinct such domains have a nonempty open difference in at least one direction. Indeed, if both were contained in the other's closure, their regular-open property would make them equal.
Fix any Riemannian metric . If the two domains have unequal volumes, they cannot be isometric, so already lies in the desired complement. Otherwise, after interchanging the two indices if necessary, choose a nonnegative nonzero smooth bump function supported in , and set
These are positive-definite smooth Riemannian metrics tending to in the topology as . Their Riemannian volume forms satisfy . The Riemannian metric and volume on are unchanged, whereas
For every sufficiently small , the volumes differ. Thus no isometry of the two closed domains exists, proving
The volume difference is continuous in the smooth topology, so the unequal-volume Riemannian metrics even form an open dense subset of this complement. The regular-open assumption is also needed to justify this literal closed-domain assertion. As written, requiring only that each closure be a closed ball permits two distinct basis members with the same closure. For example in , adjoin and to a countable basis of a topology of coordinate balls. Both are open and both closures are the same closed ball. The identity is an isometry of those closures for every Riemannian metric, so the indicated complement is empty. Thus the conclusion needs distinct closures, as in the usual basis of genuine coordinate balls used above. The no-repetitions convention is necessary as well: if the indexed basis repeats a domain, its identity map is always an isometry and the asserted complement for those two indices is empty. This volume argument concerns isometries onto the specified whole domains; the stronger assertion excluding arbitrary local isometries is the separate Sunada lemma stated above.
Interpret as the minimally coupled scalar positive Laplace-Beltrami operator on the smooth closed manifold. Writing for its metric volume measure (the Riemannian volume form on an oriented chart), integration by parts gives . The compact elliptic spectral theorem supplies an orthonormal basis with , real nonnegative eigenvalues tending to infinity and finite multiplicities. Solve this eigenvalue problem to obtain the spectral zeta function
The zero eigenvalues are excluded, not assigned inverse powers. Their multiplicity is the number of connected components: implies , so is constant on each component.
An equivalent calculation uses the spectral expansion of the Riemannian heat kernel,
Since for , the Mellin transform gives
The reduced trace decays exponentially at large . At small , subtract a finite number of terms of the heat kernel expansion, integrate those terms explicitly, and then integrate the remainder. Increasing the number of subtractions extends the formula successively to further left half-planes, producing the meromorphic continuation of rather than substituting in its divergent defining series.
For completeness, the needed curvature coefficient comes from the heat-kernel transport equations. In normal coordinates centered at , the Riemannian volume form has density . The leading Gaussian amplitude is therefore
Substitution of the Gaussian amplitude series into the heat equation gives the first diagonal transport relation . The curvature coefficient of the scalar heat kernel is consequently
In dimension two this implies
Set and . Splitting the Mellin integral at and subtracting these two heat terms gives, near ,
where is holomorphic for . As , only the second term survives at zero. Thus the zero-mode correction to the spectral zeta value is
The Gauss-Bonnet theorem, with twice the Gaussian curvature, makes this . For a connected surface , so the answer is ; a sphere gives , and a flat torus gives .
The purely local heat coefficient is . Sometimes a formal formula for quotes this coefficient with zero modes left implicit. For the actual positive-spectrum spectral zeta function defined above, the compact scalar problem necessarily has the additional subtraction . A strictly positive shifted operator is a different problem and has its own heat coefficients.
The Riemannian volume form of an oriented -dimensional Riemannian manifold is the unique positive -form taking value one on every positively oriented orthonormal frame. In positive coordinates,
The metric induces an inner product on exterior powers of the cotangent bundle, with wedges of distinct orthonormal covectors forming an orthonormal basis. The Hodge star is the pointwise linear map specified by
It is an isometry and satisfies . With the positive-sign convention, the Hodge Laplacian on differential forms is
Here is the exterior derivative and its formal adjoint; on functions is zero. On functions this is the Laplace-Beltrami operator
The convention gives the negative of this operator. All subsequent Laplacians use the nonnegative convention above.
On a compact oriented manifold without boundary, the Hodge decomposition theorem gives an orthogonal decomposition of smooth real forms,
The three component forms are uniquely determined, although the potentials in the last two summands need not be unique. The space is finite-dimensional, and each de Rham cohomology class has a unique harmonic representative. Integration by parts gives , so harmonic forms are exactly the closed and coclosed forms. Set outside . Compactness without boundary is a hypothesis of this version of the theorem; orientation alone does not supply it.
A connection on induces a dual connection on and then connections on its tensor and exterior powers by the Leibniz rule. Explicitly, for a -form ,
To prove the parallelism of the Riemannian volume form, use a local positively oriented orthonormal frame , its dual coframe , and write . Metric compatibility makes the matrix skew-symmetric. Since , differentiating the wedge yields
Off-diagonal terms vanish because they repeat a coframe factor. Thus ; equivalently parallel transport preserves both the metric and the continuously chosen orientation.
Now let be compact, oriented and without boundary. For representing functionals on harmonic forms by wedge pairing, choose an -orthonormal basis of and define
If , linearity gives
This also works when , using the empty sum. Since the Hodge star commutes with the Hodge Laplacian, is harmonic of degree .
For the full ambiguity of harmonic wedge-pairing representatives, write another representative as . Because the star is an isometry,
The forms range over all of . Hence gives zero functional exactly when its harmonic projection is zero. Hodge decomposition proves that the complete answer is
Both summands in this ambiguity are permitted; it is not only an exact-form ambiguity. The exact and coexact component forms are orthogonal to every harmonic form, so every displayed choice works. Conversely a nonzero harmonic component would pair nontrivially with some , and therefore cannot occur. The harmonic representative is unique; the arbitrary smooth representative generally is not. The formula also covers the endpoint degrees and any exceptional case where the ambiguity space is zero.
For a concrete coexact ambiguity, take the torus with metric . The form annihilates every harmonic one-form by orthogonality, yet is nonzero. Thus an annihilating representative need not even be closed, let alone exact.
Let be a closed manifold with a Riemannian metric and use , the positive Laplace-Beltrami operator. This is the setting in which the final discrete eigenfunction expansion applies without additional boundary or noncompact spectral hypotheses. A Riemannian heat kernel is a smooth for such that
for every smooth initial function . Here solves the heat equation. The limit is the statement that the initial kernel is the Dirac delta distribution on the diagonal. In the closed setting this uniquely determines the heat kernel; it is symmetric, preserves constants, is nonnegative, and satisfies the semigroup property.
A heat parametrix is an approximate version with the same delta initial limit and with error
regular enough at to correct by a convergent integral series. One may construct it by the local Gaussian ansatz
where near the diagonal and is supported in a convex normal neighborhood, and the smooth coefficients solve the usual radial transport equations. The leading coefficient accounts for the Riemannian volume form. Taking sufficiently large makes the residual extend continuously, with any prescribed finite number of derivatives, to . Alternatively a smooth asymptotic summation of all transport coefficients gives a residual vanishing to every order. These local construction, extension and differentiability facts are used here as subsidiary results, as permitted.
For the correction proof take a heat parametrix whose residual is smooth up to on a short interval . We also use its uniform integral bound , its approximate-identity limit, and the following standard differentiability property: convolution with a smooth time-dependent kernel gives a smooth kernel for , and differentiating it yields the identity below. These properties follow from the Gaussian estimates and the delta initial limit; no conclusion about the final exact heat kernel is assumed.
Define the Volterra convolution of kernels by
It is associative wherever these integrals converge. The delta term at the upper endpoint gives
Seek . Then its error vanishes exactly when . The solution is the Volterra parametrix correction
The signs matter: the first correction is .
To prove convergence, let and . The time variables in range over a simplex of volume , so
The series for therefore converges uniformly on . Derivatives obey analogous bounds, with polynomial factors in , by the quoted residual extension and differentiation properties. Thus the series can be convolved and differentiated as above. Associativity and absolute convergence give , proving . The correction has integral norm by the integral bound on and boundedness of . It has zero initial limit, so has precisely the required delta initial data.
For uniqueness, a smooth solution with zero initial data satisfies the heat equation energy identity
Its initial norm is zero, hence . Applying uniqueness to consecutive evolutions proves the semigroup property. Choose and, for arbitrary , compose enough kernels that . The resulting kernel is independent of the subdivision by uniqueness, is smooth for positive time by the quoted differentiability property, and extends the construction to every . This proves a parametrix determines the global heat kernel in the closed setting. The heat equation maximum principle gives nonnegativity and applying uniqueness to the constant initial function gives conservation of total mass. Self-adjointness of the positive Laplace-Beltrami operator gives symmetry.
Finally let be a complete complex orthonormal eigenbasis of , with eigenvalues , repeated by multiplicity. As subsidiary analytic facts we use the compact elliptic compact elliptic spectral theorem, elliptic regularity bounds making each fixed derivative of grow at most polynomially in , and a polynomial eigenvalue-counting bound. The spectral expansion of the Riemannian heat kernel converges because exponential decay makes the following series converge with every derivative when :
Indeed, evolving initial data gives by direct substitution into the heat equation and uniqueness. For general , completeness and the heat equation energy identity give
The smoothly convergent kernel series represents this same operator, and equality for all smooth identifies it pointwise with the constructed heat kernel. The complex conjugate is required by the inner product; for a real eigenbasis it may be omitted. A noncompact Riemannian manifold may instead require a spectral integral, and the unqualified discrete formula should not be asserted there.
In this context a nowhere locally homogeneous metric, also called a bumpy metric, is a smooth Riemannian metric for which no two distinct nonempty open subsets are isometric with their induced metrics. Equivalently every local isometry between open subsets is the identity wherever defined: a nonidentity local isometry sends some point to a distinct point, and restriction to sufficiently small disjoint neighborhoods would violate the first formulation. This is the local-isometry meaning of the terminology here; degeneracy of periodic geodesics is a different use of the word bumpy.
Sunada's local isometry lemma states that on a compact smooth manifold without boundary of dimension the nowhere locally homogeneous metrics contain a residual set in the space of smooth Riemannian metrics with its topology. In particular they are dense, by the Baire category theorem. A residual set is a countable intersection of open dense sets. The dimension assumption matters: every one-dimensional Riemannian metric is locally in arclength coordinates and has local translations.
The jet bundle of maps consists of equivalence classes of smooth maps near , where two maps agree to order at in coordinate charts. Its projection to sends to . For a multi-index in variables there are derivatives of order . Thus a coordinate chart consists of the source point, the target point, and coefficients for every derivative order through . Summing the counts gives
This includes . The fibre over is the space of truncated Taylor maps with fixed constant term , locally modeled on
For its identification with is canonical. For higher , changes of target coordinates mix derivatives of different orders, so this is a coordinate or connection-dependent description, not a canonical vector-bundle identification. The truncation is an affine bundle modeled on the pullback of over .
For the density assertion put and . Their closures must be distinct. If , the identity is an isometry for every Riemannian metric, and the requested complement is empty. Under the intended distinct-domain assumption, the smooth closed-ball hypothesis makes and regular closed domains, equal to the closures of their interiors. After interchanging them if necessary, there is a nonempty open set with compact closure in . Otherwise each interior would be contained in the other closure, forcing .
Take any smooth Riemannian metric . If , it already lies outside , because an isometry preserves the Riemannian volume form. If the volumes agree, choose a nonzero nonnegative smooth bump function supported in and set
These are positive definite Riemannian metrics, they agree with on , and in as , since every derivative of is times a fixed compactly supported smooth tensor. Their Riemannian volume forms satisfy
Hence whereas for every . In particular
The two domains cannot be isometric for . Every neighborhood of therefore meets the complement of , proving
This localized volume perturbation proves the requested density even when the two domains overlap, and works in every positive dimension. It does not by itself prove the stronger residual local-isometry statement: fixed isometric closures and arbitrary isometric open subsets are different conditions.