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Symplectic manifolds arise from classical mechanics; in particular, they are a generalization of the phase space of a closed system. [1] In the same way the Hamilton equations allow one to derive the time evolution of a system from a set of differential equations, the symplectic form should allow one to obtain a vector field describing the flow of the system from the differential of a ...
Conversely, given any contact manifold M, the product M×R has a natural structure of a symplectic manifold. If α is a contact form on M, then ω = d(e t α) is a symplectic form on M×R, where t denotes the variable in the R-direction. This new manifold is called the symplectization (sometimes symplectification in the literature) of the ...
Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, defined as smooth manifolds with a Riemannian metric (an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to point). This gives, in particular, local notions of angle, length of curves, surface area and volume.
Let be a smooth manifold; a (smooth) distribution assigns to any point a vector subspace in a smooth way. More precisely, consists of a collection {} of vector subspaces with the following property: Around any there exist a neighbourhood and a collection of vector fields, …, such that, for any point , span {(), …, ()} =.
In mathematics, differential topology is the field dealing with the topological properties and smooth properties [a] of smooth manifolds.In this sense differential topology is distinct from the closely related field of differential geometry, which concerns the geometric properties of smooth manifolds, including notions of size, distance, and rigid shape.
For example, if M is a submanifold of N and φ is the inclusion, then a vector field along φ is just a section of the tangent bundle of N along M; in particular, a vector field on M defines such a section via the inclusion of TM inside TN. This idea generalizes to arbitrary smooth maps. Suppose that X is a vector field on M, i.e., a section of TM.
Let :, (,) be a (left) group action of a Lie group on a smooth manifold ; it is called a Lie group action (or smooth action) if the map is differentiable. Equivalently, a Lie group action of G {\displaystyle G} on M {\displaystyle M} consists of a Lie group homomorphism G → D i f f ( M ) {\displaystyle G\to \mathrm {Diff} (M)} .
In particular, if is a smooth manifold and is a smooth vector field, one is interested in finding integral curves to . More precisely, given p ∈ M {\displaystyle p\in M} one is interested in curves γ p : R → M {\displaystyle \gamma _{p}:\mathbb {R} \to M} such that: