Foundation of mechanics 2nd edition and vector bundle definitions

differential-geometrydifferential-topologysmooth-manifoldsvector-bundles

I proceed studying differential theory at Foundations of Mechanics 2nd edition R. Abraham and E. Marsden, and I sometimes get confused by divergence with other sources.

Right now I got confused by a couple of points:

  1. Meanwhile other sources for local bundle charts $\forall(U,\varphi), (U,\psi)\in\mathcal{A}_{max}$ require only well-definedness of a map $\psi \circ \varphi^{-1}(x,v) \lvert_{\varphi(U\cap V)} =(\phi_1(x),\phi_2(x)(v))$, this book demands a map $\psi \circ \varphi^{-1}(x,v) \lvert_{\varphi(U\cap V)}$ to be a diffeomorphism as well as $\phi_2$ to be a linear isomorphism.
    It's of course clear that this statements has purpose of preserving local bundle structure as well as having a differentiable structure.
  2. A local trivialization $\varphi: U\to W\times F, U\subset S,W \subset E$ is said to act into Cartesian product with some vector space $E$ which is not in any way connected with the original space $S$, when typically it is just Cartesian product $U \times F$
  3. This book have weaken the definition of a vector bundle requiring local charts to be only bijections, not homeomorphisms.

Definitions:

  1. Local bundle chart. Let $E$ and $F$ be finite-dimensional real vector spaces, and $W \in \tau(E)$ an open neighborhood of $E$, then we call the Cartesian product $W \times F$ a local vector bundle.
  2. Vector bundle. A local bundle chart is a pair $(U,\varphi)$, where $U \subset S$, and $ \varphi: U \to W \times F$ is a bijection onto a local bundle $W \times F$. A vector bundle atlas on $S$ is a family of local bundle charts $\mathcal{A}=\{(U_i,\varphi_i)\}$ covering the space $S$, and $\forall(U,\varphi), (U,\psi)\in\mathcal{A}\;\psi \circ \varphi^{-1}(x,v) \lvert_{\varphi(U\cap V)} =(\phi_1(x),\phi_2(x)(v))$ is a diffeomorphism as well as $\phi_2$ a linear isomorphism.

So how can I show that these statements are equivalent to standard definitions?

Best Answer

The first thing to say before the further explanation is about the kind of vector bundles we talk about.

There are two kinds of vector bundles: smooth and topological.

Smooth require local bundle charts to be diffeomorphisms and a projection to be smooth, meanwhile topological require charts only to be a homeomorphisms and a projection to be continuous.

The definition the author introduces is close to smooth vector bundle, but lacks smoothness of a projection. However, the zero section's projection $\pi:E\to E_0$ is smooth by theorem 1.5.4, and it is a submanifolds of $E$, so the zero section is itself a smooth vector bundle in its canonical meaning.

  1. For smooth vector bundles the fact that the transition map is a diffeomorphism is derived from the fact that local bundle chart is diffeomorphism too. So, its secondary and should not necessarily be included in the definition;
  2. $S$ isn't endowed with topology, so to concern the transition map a diffeomorphism (roughly speaking, we consider this map to be smooth and to preserve topological structure) we should act from topological space to another topological space;
  3. As far as the base space $S$ doesn't carry any topology, we cannot consider having a homeomorphism, However, we do induce pullback topology onto $S$, so beside of chart being a bijection in the definition it happens to be a homeomorphism de facto.
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