Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 16 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Odd-dimensional spheres cannot carry a symplectic form, by even-dimensionality. For with , the second de Rham cohomology group vanishes. Any hypothetical symplectic form would therefore be . The symplectic cohomology obstruction givesby the Generalized Stokes theorem. But the symplectic orientation makes a positive volume form, whose integral on this nonempty compact manifold is positive. This is a contradiction.
The oriented area form on is nondegenerate and automatically closed, since a two-dimensional manifold has no nonzero three-forms. Thus among positive-dimensional spheres, exactly admits a symplectic structure:If zero-dimensional symplectic manifolds are admitted, also qualifies: its zero two-form is nondegenerate on the zero tangent spaces. This is a convention-dependent additional case, not another positive-dimensional example.