Cohomological Gysin map of an embedding 2026-10-05
For a closed smooth embedding of codimension whose normal bundle is oriented over a coefficient ring , a tubular neighborhood, excision and the Thom isomorphism theorem identifyThe relative-to-absolute map defines . For closed oriented , it is characterized bywith compatible orientations. It obeys . If and is the connecting map followed by the inverse Thom isomorphism, then, over ,These identities follow from naturality of the relative cup product and show how the exact sequence determines multiplication in complements. Over every real normal bundle has the required orientation.
Compact injective immersion is an embedding 2026-10-03
An injective immersion from a compact smooth manifold into a Hausdorff smooth manifold is a smooth embedding. Indeed, it is a continuous bijection onto its image, and compactness makes its inverse continuous.
A compact smooth -manifold with nonempty boundary embedded in is a proper compact locally contractible subset. Alexander duality therefore expresses the reduced homology of its complement by the reduced cohomology of the abstract manifold. Thus these groups do not depend on its particular smooth embedding.
Embedded curve 2026-09-29
An embedded curve is a smooth embedding of a one-dimensional manifold. Its image has no self-intersections and carries the subspace topology.
Embedding 2026-10-13
An embedding identifies one mathematical structure with a structure-preserving copy inside another. In topology it is a homeomorphism onto its image with the subspace topology; an algebraic embedding is an injective homomorphism. A smooth embedding additionally has injective differential everywhere, so its image is an embedded submanifold.
Choose finitely many coordinate charts on a compact manifold and smooth functions supported in them, positive on a cover. Extend the displayed chart products by zero. A positive first coordinate and its matching chart coordinates separate points, while their derivatives detect every nonzero tangent vector. Thus the map is an injective immersion; compactness makes it a smooth embedding. Extra zero coordinates make its codimension positive if required.
Holomorphic embedding 2026-10-03
A holomorphic embedding is a holomorphic map that is also a smooth embedding. Its image is a complex submanifold and the map is a biholomorphism onto that image.
Irrational winding of the torus 2026-10-03
For irrational , the mapis an injective immersion with dense image. It is not a smooth embedding, since points with arbitrarily large parameter return arbitrarily close to its initial point in the subspace topology.
Knot Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A knot is the image of a smooth embedding , considered up to ambient isotopy. The circle supplies a closed loop with no free ends; the smooth embedding condition rules out self-intersections and requires a nonzero tangent vector in a regular parametrization. The equivalent convention uses the three-sphere: removing a point outside the knot identifies the remaining space with three-dimensional Euclidean space by stereographic projection.
More precisely, knots are equivalent if there is a smooth family of diffeomorphisms of the ambient space, for , such that is the identity and . Every intermediate remains a smooth embedding. This ambient isotopy allows bending, stretching and moving a loop, but neither cutting it nor letting strands cross through each other. We compare the embedded images rather than their parametrizations; an oriented knot additionally remembers a direction of travel.
For a worked example, start with , where is taken modulo , and useBoth scale factors stay positive, so each is a diffeomorphism. At the circle becomes the ellipse , yet its knot type is still the unknot. Exact lengths and angles are therefore irrelevant to knot type; self-intersection is the obstruction that the deformation must avoid.
Knot theory Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-13
Knot theory studies closed curves in three-dimensional Euclidean space that cannot intersect themselves, and asks which can be deformed into one another without cutting or passing one strand through another. Its basic object is a knot: a smooth embedding of a circle, considered up to ambient isotopy. Several disjoint knots form a link. More generally, knot theory studies such embeddings in other manifolds and in higher dimensions.
The central surprise is that a flexible circle can carry permanent information about how it sits in space. A trefoil knot and an unknot each consist of just one circle, but no ambient isotopy turns one into the other. A knot diagram translates this spatial question into a finite drawing; Reidemeister moves describe the changes of drawing that preserve the knot. Knot invariants translate it into computations: unequal Alexander polynomials of a knot, Jones polynomials, or knot groups certify different knots. Equal values of a particular knot invariant generally leave the question open; even an isomorphism of knot groups alone is not a complete classification.
An early foundation for working with knot diagrams is Kurt Reidemeister's 1927 paper Elementare Begründung der Knotentheorie, published in volume 5 of Abhandlungen aus dem Mathematischen Seminar der Universität Hamburg, pages 24–32.[ref] Marc Lackenby's authored notes Elementary knot theory, Section 2.4, explain the Reidemeister move theorem and its role in searching for a certificate that two knot diagrams represent the same knot.[ref]
Lagrangian embedding Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 16 4 Solution 2026-10-14
For an oriented real vector bundle of rank , the Thom isomorphism theorem gives a unique Thom class restricting to the chosen generator in each fibre, and isomorphismsEquivalently use the pair , identifying with the zero section. After forgetting relative supports, pull the Thom class back along the zero section to define the Euler class:In this expression the relative class is first mapped to absolute cohomology.
A compact embedded submanifold equipped with a coorientation has an oriented normal bundle of rank . A tubular neighborhood and excision identify its Thom class with a class . Its image in is the cohomology class of a cooriented submanifold . In particular it restricts to zero on . If the ambient manifold is oriented, orient by the normal-first convention. The class is its Poincare dual, characterized byfor the appropriate complementary degree. This is the stated integration identity in cohomological notation.
First prove the Lefschetz fixed-point theorem for an oriented closed n-manifold . Orient its diagonal by the identification , and choose the normal orientation so this agrees with the normal-first convention in the product. This produces the integral class . To compute the part that contributes to the trace, tensor with : the trace on a finitely generated integral cohomology group means its trace on the free quotient, equivalently on rational cohomology; torsion contributes nothing.
Choose a basis of and its Poincare duality pairing dual basis , normalized by . The rational image of the cohomology class of the diagonal isIndeed, pairing this expression against with degrees picks out the p-summands. The cross-product multiplication contributes and moving past contributes . Together with their product is . The result is , exactly the diagonal's defining identity. The rational Künneth theorem and nondegeneracy of the duality pairing determine the class. An integral torsion component, if present, is not determined by this rational expression and does not affect any evaluation below.
For the graph map , write . Pulling back the expression and evaluating gives the graph-diagonal formula for the Lefschetz number:If has no fixed point, its graph lies in . The relative Thom class restricts to zero there, so and . The contrapositive proves the required fixed-point assertion, without requiring smoothness of or transversality of its graph.
The printed hypothesis does not require to be orientable. For a nonorientable , the diagonal's normal bundle is , so an ordinary integral coorientation cannot be assumed. We extend the proved theorem as follows, rather than apply the untwisted diagonal computation incorrectly. We first construct a smooth embedding in Euclidean space using finitely many charts and smooth functions supported in those charts, with at least one at every point. The map , with zero extensions, is injective: a positive first coordinate identifies a chart in which its remaining coordinates recover . Its differential is injective as well, since and force in a chart with . Compactness makes this injective immersion a homeomorphism onto its image. This finite-chart Euclidean embedding of a compact smooth manifold, enlarged by zero coordinates if necessary, has positive codimension. A compact tubular disc neighbourhood is an oriented N-manifold with boundary, inheriting its orientation from the ambient Euclidean space. Its double of a manifold is closed and oriented. Projection of each copy of to agrees on their common boundary, giving ; inclusion into the first copy gives with .
Set . A fixed point of must lie in , and then is exactly the image of a fixed point of . Moreover , and cyclicity of trace for maps between finite-dimensional rational cohomology groups givesin each degree, because . Thus . The oriented theorem for now gives a fixed point of , hence of , whenever . This oriented manifold retract for the Lefschetz theorem proves the full printed result. The double construction also works componentwise if necessary.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 15 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A -dimensional embedded submanifold has the subspace topology and, near each of its points, a manifold chart identifying it with a coordinate slice . These slice charts for an embedded submanifold give its smooth structure, and its inclusion is a smooth embedding.
A regular value of a smooth map is one for which is surjective at every . If the preimage is nonempty this forces .
The inverse function theorem used here says that if is smooth and is an invertible matrix, then its restriction to a suitable neighbourhood of is a diffeomorphism onto an open neighbourhood of , with smooth inverse.
To prove the regular level set theorem, fix and choose coordinates centred at . The coordinate representative has a rank- Jacobian matrix. After permuting domain coordinates, its first columns form an invertible matrix. DefineIts Jacobian matrix is block triangular with invertible diagonal blocks, so the inverse function theorem makes a local coordinate change. In these coordinates, is precisely the slice with first coordinates zero. Thus it is an embedded submanifold of dimension , withAn empty preimage is harmless; the local assertion is then vacuous.
Three equivalent formulations of orientability of a smooth manifold are: an oriented atlas whose transition Jacobian determinants are positive; a smoothly varying orientation of a vector space on each tangent space; and a nowhere-vanishing smooth top-degree differential form. An oriented atlas gives compatible oriented coordinate frames. A partition of unity glues their positive local top forms, and a nonzero top form declares a frame positive precisely when it evaluates positively on that frame. These constructions prove the equivalence.
For the orientability of a regular fibre, write . The derivative gives a short exact sequence of vector bundlesThis is the reason the normal bundle of a regular fibre is trivial. Choose any fixed positive basis of and an ambient orientation on . Declare a frame of positive whenis positive in , where . Changing a lift adds a tangent vector and leaves the determinant sign unchanged. Local smooth lifts exist because is surjective, so this rule varies smoothly and agrees on overlaps. It gives a global orientation on . Only an orientation of the single vector space was chosen; itself need not be orientable.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 42 4 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A general exponential family of order has the representationThe canonical sufficient statistics are independent of the parameter, the support is fixed, and the cumulant function normalizes the probability density function. Minimality rules out a redundant affine relation among the sufficient statistics. If ranges over an open subset of , , and is a smooth embedding with derivative of rank , its image is a -dimensional parameter surface in the -dimensional natural parameter space: this is a curved exponential family. In a genuinely curved example the surface is nonaffine.
Take the normal distribution with . Its log density expands asIt is a curved exponential family with sufficient statistics and natural parameters , . The ambient full normal distribution family has , andThe curve is with , and its derivative with respect to has rank one. Thus the mean and variance are constrained by ; the two canonical parameters cannot vary independently. Concavity of an ambient canonical log likelihood need not persist along a curved parameter surface.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2007 iii Paper 19 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the metric on induced by its given Euclidean embedding. For two smooth maps define the C1 metric on a smooth mapping space bywhere the differential has domain with the induced inner product. Compactness makes both suprema finite. The norm properties give symmetry and the triangle inequality, and the first term makes distance zero imply equality of maps. Thus convergence in is uniform convergence of both maps and differentials.
Because is an immersion, is injective at every point. The continuous function on the compact unit tangent bundle has a positive minimum . ThereforeFor all sufficiently large , , and thenConsequently every sufficiently late is an immersion. If has dimension zero it is a finite set, the immersion assertion is automatic, and eventual injectivity follows directly from separation of its finitely many image points; we henceforth treat positive dimension.
For injectivity, choose finitely many coordinate maps on convex balls, with smaller coordinate neighborhoods covering and closures lying inside the larger balls. Write and . On the finitely many relevant compact coordinate closures, the differentials of the have a common positive lower bound , and convergence in givesfor all late . The assumed uniform second-derivative bound gives a common bound for on those larger coordinate neighborhoods. If the bound is expressed using an intrinsic Hessian, the coordinate chain rule also involves first derivatives and derivatives of the fixed charts; their bounds are uniform by C1 convergence and compactness. Thus can be larger than the printed constant , but is independent of .
For whose segment lies in one such coordinate ball, Taylor formula with integral remainder givesChoose with . Then, whenever ,The Lebesgue number lemma applied to the finite smaller-chart cover, together with uniform continuity of its coordinate inverses on the relevant compact sets, gives such that every pair with lies in one such chart with coordinate distance below . The displayed estimate therefore excludes all sufficiently close pairs of equal images, uniformly in late .
The remaining pairs form the compact setIf it is nonempty, injectivity of the smooth embedding gives a positive minimum of on it. Uniform convergence makes for all sufficiently large , and hence on ,If is empty there is nothing left to check. Combining the near-pair and distant-pair bounds makes injective for every sufficiently late . It is already an immersion, and a continuous injection from compact into a Hausdorff space is a homeomorphism onto its image. By compact injective immersion is an embedding,This proves the requested stability of compact smooth embeddings using the stated second-derivative assumption. That assumption supplies a convenient Taylor constant; the stronger C1 openness result can replace it by the uniform continuity of the limiting differential on finitely many small coordinate balls.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 iii Paper 15 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A subset of an -dimensional smooth manifold is an -dimensional embedded submanifold if, for each , some coordinate chart containing satisfiesThe induced topology on is the subspace topology, and the first coordinates restricted to give its smooth atlas. To see their smooth transition maps agree, restrict the ambient smooth transitions to the coordinate planes; their inverses restrict in the same way. The inclusion then has injective differential of a smooth map and is a homeomorphism onto its image. Conversely this is the local coordinate description of a smooth smooth embedding. An embedded submanifold need not be a closed subset of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 15 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
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 matrixIts 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 transformationThe 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 arewhere 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 containsThe 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 identifyOnly 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 givesso .
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 isIt 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 .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 140 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let be the cotangent bundle projection and its canonical one-form on a cotangent bundle, defined by . Use the symplectic form , so in local coordinates .
The graph map is a smooth embedding, with , and henceIts image has dimension , half the dimension of . By the definition of a Lagrangian submanifold,This is the graph of a closed one-form is Lagrangian criterion. The opposite conventional sign for the symplectic form gives the same criterion.