The singular-curve adjunction formula in a symplectic manifold of real dimension four gives for a simple J-holomorphic sphere, with a nonnegative singularity count . Hence the displayed inequality holds. This is the version needed when the sphere need not be embedded.
Anti-symplectic map Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
Independent functions on a -dimensional symplectic manifold can locally form the position half of canonical coordinates exactly when throughout a neighbourhood. Their commuting Hamiltonian vector fields span the fibres of . Flow from a transverse section gives coordinates with . Write locally and take . Then .
Characteristic line field 2026-10-05
For a hypersurface of a symplectic manifold, the restriction of the symplectic form has a one-dimensional kernel, its characteristic line field. On a regular value level , this line is generated by the Hamiltonian vector field of .
Coisotropic submanifold Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
A coisotropic submanifold satisfies , where the superscript denotes the symplectic orthogonal complement. Every hypersurface of a symplectic manifold is coisotropic.
This subgroup uses Hamiltonians whose support in is compact. Their flows are the identity outside a fixed compact set. On closed manifolds this support condition imposes no extra restriction. On an open symplectic manifold, it excludes nontrivial whole-fiber cotangent fiber translations, even when their generating one-form is exact.
Compatible almost complex structure Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-05
An almost complex structure on a symplectic manifold is compatible with when
and is a positive-definite inner product. Every symplectic vector bundle admits a compatible almost complex structure.
Darboux theorem (symplectic geometry) Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-03
The Darboux theorem says that every point of a -dimensional symplectic manifold has local coordinates in which the symplectic form is . Thus symplectic manifolds have no local invariants beyond dimension.
Dirichlet energy of a map 2026-10-06
For a smooth map between Riemannian manifolds, its Dirichlet energy is half the integral of the squared norm of its differential, using the source and target metrics. When the source is two-dimensional, a conformal change of its metric leaves this energy unchanged. For a J-holomorphic curve into a symplectic manifold with a compatible almost complex structure, the Energy identity for a J-holomorphic curve identifies it with the pulled-back symplectic area. The norm of a differential here is the full tensor norm, summing its squared values on an orthonormal source frame.
The displacement energy of a subset of a symplectic manifold is the infimum of the energy norms of compactly supported Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms moving it off itself. The infimum is if no such map exists. One must use the same chosen norm convention in both this definition and any energy lower bound. A compact set can have zero displacement energy even when every nonidentity map has positive norm.
In a product symplectic manifold , every compatible almost complex structure admits a J-holomorphic sphere in class through each point. Here has area , and the torus carries a constant symplectic form. All spherical classes are integer multiples of , so a curve in class cannot split into positive-area nonconstant spheres. For the product complex structure the fibre through a point is unique and regular. Its one-point count modulo two is one; generic transversality and the compact one-dimensional parameterized moduli spaces preserve this count. Approximation and Gromov compactness for spheres remove the genericity requirement. This gives the area- curve used in the proof of the Gromov non-squeezing theorem.
Suppose a symplectic Lie group action on a connected symplectic manifold has global component Hamiltonians and a common fixed point . Choose their constants linearly so . The difference has zero Hamiltonian vector field because fundamental fields and Hamiltonian fields have compatible Lie-bracket conventions; it is therefore constant. At , all fundamental fields vanish, so both terms in vanish. Thus everywhere and the Poisson brackets of the components reproduce the group Lie algebra. For a connected group this also yields coadjoint equivariance. A linear unitary action on a vector space has the origin as such a fixed point.
Geometric quantization 2026-10-14
Geometric quantization associates quantum states and observables with a symplectic manifold. A first step uses a complex line bundle with a connection on a vector bundle whose curvature is proportional to the symplectic form divided by ; its existence imposes an integrality condition. A real polarization is an integrable half-dimensional distribution with Lagrangian submanifolds as leaves. Requiring sections to be covariantly constant along the leaves reduces the variables to a configuration-space description. Restricting the curvature to a Lagrangian leaf gives zero, permitting local flat sections; global sections can require trivial holonomy. Exact Lagrangian graphs also describe local semiclassical phases through their generating functions.
For a compact symplectic manifold, smooth convergence of tame almost complex structures and a uniform area bound give a subsequence of J-holomorphic spheres converging, after reparametrization, to a finite tree of J-holomorphic spheres, with convergence smooth away from finitely many bubbling points. The total homology class and symplectic area are preserved. Constant components may be added for stability. In a spherical class which cannot split into two positive-area spherical classes, there is only one nonconstant component.
This group consists of time-one maps of Hamiltonian isotopies whose flows are defined throughout the specified time interval. With , composition of isotopies generated by has generator , where is the first isotopy. The inverse path has generator . These formulas prove closure under composition and inversion. On a closed symplectic manifold, every smooth time-dependent Hamiltonian has a complete flow over a bounded time interval.
Hamiltonian group action Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
A Hamiltonian group action is a Lie group action on a symplectic manifold with an equivariant moment map . In the sign convention , each component satisfies , where is the fundamental vector field. The opposite Hamiltonian vector field convention reverses the sign.
Hamiltonian Lie algebra homomorphism Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
On a symplectic manifold, use and for the Poisson bracket. Cartan's magic formula gives . Taking the interior product of a differential form with then yields , proving the homomorphism. Its kernel consists of locally constant functions, since precisely when . On a connected manifold these are the constants. The quotient of smooth functions by this kernel is therefore the Lie algebra of Hamiltonian vector fields. A different contraction sign requires a compatible bracket sign.
Compactly supported Hamiltonian vector fields can attain any prescribed tangent vector at a point of a symplectic manifold: prescribe the derivative of a local Hamiltonian and multiply by a bump function. Composing flows for a tangent basis gives an open orbit by the inverse function theorem. Every orbit is open, so on a connected manifold the compactly supported Hamiltonian transformations act transitively.