[Math] Why are the partial derivatives a basis of the tangent space

differential-formstangent-spaces

Why are $\frac{\partial }{\partial x_i}$ , $i=1,…,n$, a basis for $T_x\mathbb{R}^n$?

My understanding is that the tangent space at $x$ is the set of all vectors beginning at $x$. I would be led to believe that all vectors beginning at $x$ would have the form $\vec{v}-\vec{x}$.

My question is three fold:
1. Why are the basis vectors partial derivatives and not the vector above?
2. How do they span all vectors originating at $x$?
3. Are elements of the tangents space thus linear functions?

Best Answer

To distinguish between points and tangent vectors, let $p=(p_1,...,p_n)\in \mathbb{R}^n$ a point of $\mathbb{R}^n$ and $v=(v_1,...,v_n)\in T_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$ a point of the tangent space $\mathbb{R}^n$.

The line through $p=(p_1,...,p_n)\in \mathbb{R}^n$ with direction $v=(v_1,...,v_n)\in T_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$ has parametrization $a(t)=(p_1+tv_1,...,p_n+tv_n)$.

If f is $C^\infty$ in a neighborhood of $p\in \mathbb{R}^n$ and $v$ is a tangent vector at $p$, define the directional derivative of $f$ in the direction of $v$ at $p$ as $$D_vf=\lim\limits_{t \to 0} \frac{f(a(t))-f(p)}{t}.$$

By the multi-variable chain rule, we have $$D_vf=\sum_{i=1}^{n} \frac{da^i}{dt}(0)\frac{\partial f}{\partial x^i}(p)=\sum_{i=1}^{n} v_i\frac{\partial f}{\partial x^i}(p).$$

Of course in the above notation $D_vf$, the partial derivatives are evaluated at $p$, since v is a vector at $p$. Now, we can define a map $D_v$ (which assigns to every f which is $C^\infty$ the real number $D_v(f)$ ) with the natural way $$D_v=\sum_{i=1}^{n} v_i\frac{\partial }{\partial x^i}(p)=\sum_{i=1}^{n} v_i\frac{\partial }{\partial x^i}\Bigr\rvert_{p}.$$

This map $D_v\in \mathcal{D}_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$ is in fact a derivation at $p$. Finally, you can show that the map \begin{align} \phi :T_p(\mathbb{R}^n) &\to \mathcal{D}_p(\mathbb{R}^n) \\ v &\to D_v \end{align}

is a linear isomorphism of vector spaces (for surjectivity, you can use Taylor's theorem).


So the answers to your questions are:

3) Υes, you can see every tangent vector $v \in T_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$ as a derivation $D_v\in \mathcal{D}_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$ using the isomorphism $\phi$.

2) Since $e_1,...,e_n$ is the canonical basis of $T_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$ and $\phi$ is an isomorphism, then $\phi(e_1),...,\phi(e_n)$ is a basis of $D_v\in \mathcal{D}_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$. But $\phi(e_i)=\frac{\partial }{\partial x^i}\Bigr\rvert_{p}$, hence $\{\frac{\partial }{\partial x^i}\Bigr\rvert_{p}\}_{i=1}^n$ is a basis of the tangent space $\mathcal{D}_p(\mathbb{R}^n)\simeq T_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$.

1) As a result, you can say that the basis of $T_p(\mathbb{R}^n)$ is $\{\frac{\partial }{\partial x^i}\Bigr\rvert_{p}\}_{i=1}^n$. You can say all that because of $\phi$.