An immersed submanifold of is a manifold equipped with an injective immersion . It is an embedded submanifold when is also a homeomorphism onto its image with the subspace topology, equivalently when it is a smooth embedding. For irrational , the irrational winding of the torus
is an injective immersion with dense image, and therefore is not an embedding. If is compact, however, an injective immersion is a continuous bijection from a compact space to its image in the Hausdorff manifold ; its inverse is continuous. Thus the compact injective immersion is an embedding theorem makes embedded.
Now let be embedded, with , , and . Apply the constant rank theorem to its inclusion. After choosing coordinates and reordering them, there is a neighborhood of with coordinates for which
This is the slice chart for an embedded submanifold.
It is false that every embedded submanifold is the inverse image of a regular value of a map to a Euclidean space. If a codimension- submanifold is for a regular value of , the differentials of the component functions give a global frame of its conormal bundle, so its normal bundle is trivial. The core circle of the Möbius band is embedded but has the nontrivial Möbius normal line bundle. This is the normal-bundle obstruction to being a regular level set.
Finally, an inductive spinning construction gives the requested torus. Place an embedding in the half-space and define
The positive radius makes this map injective, and its differential is injective in both the and circle directions; compactness then makes it an embedding. Starting with and iterating proves the embedding of the n-dimensional torus in codimension one:
A smooth map is a smooth embedding when it is an injective immersion and a homeomorphism onto its image with the subspace topology. The unit sphere is the inverse image of the regular value under , so the preimage theorem makes it a smooth submanifold of and its inclusion an immersion. It is injective, and a continuous injection from the compact sphere into the Hausdorff Euclidean space is a homeomorphism onto its image. Thus the inclusion is an embedding.
Products of spheres can be embedded by iterated spinning. Start with a round translated into the half-space whose last coordinate is positive. If a compact -manifold is embedded by
then
is an injective immersion; compactness again makes it an embedding. Iterating with embeds in , where .
Smooth isotopy Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A smooth isotopy is a smooth family of smooth embeddings or diffeomorphisms parametrized by an interval and beginning at the given map.
Symplectic embedding 2026-09-28
A symplectic embedding is a smooth embedding satisfying .
Torus knot Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For nonzero coprime integers , the torus knot lies on a standard unknotted torus in the three-sphere and winds times meridionally and times longitudinally. Here a meridian of a solid torus goes around the small cross-section of the doughnut, while the longitudinal direction goes around its central hole. The integers count signed turns, so changing one sign gives the mirror of a link of the torus knot. In this article is always the meridional count and the longitudinal count.
An explicit parametric curve in three-dimensional Euclidean space is
where . Its cylindrical radius satisfies , the equation of the supporting torus. Its meridional angle is and its longitudinal angle is : this checks the convention directly rather than relying on the picture. Its squared speed is
If two parameter values give the same point, their difference satisfies . Bézout's identity for the coprime integers then gives . Thus the loop closes and is an injective function on the parameter circle, with nonzero derivative; it is a smooth embedding.
For example, , , , produces a trefoil knot. During one circuit the meridional angle changes by and the longitudinal angle by . The supporting torus is a guide for construction, not a constraint on later ambient isotopies: the knot may move off it. This family makes arithmetic visible as geometry: the coprime integers determine whether a single traversal visits the whole loop without repetition.
Figure 1.
The trefoil T(2,3): two meridional turns and three longitudinal turns
. Details.
The coprime integers hypothesis matters. If the greatest common divisor is , the same parametric curve retraces a single component times; it does not automatically draw different components. The corresponding torus link is instead the full set of points on the torus whose angles satisfy , with meridional angle and longitudinal angle . It has disjoint components, each with winding counts . For instance, the torus link consists of two parallel loops and is a Hopf link, whereas substituting into simply traces one of those loops twice.