Cotangent bundle

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In mathematics, especially differential geometry, the cotangent bundle of a smooth manifold is the vector bundle of all the cotangent spaces at every point in the manifold. It may be described also as the dual bundle to the tangent bundle.

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[edit] The cotangent sheaf

Smooth sections of the cotangent bundle are differential one-forms.

[edit] Definition of the cotangent sheaf

Let M×M be the Cartesian product of M with itself. The diagonal mapping Δ sends a point p in M to the point (p,p) of M×M. The image of Δ is called the diagonal. Let \mathcal{I} be the sheaf of germs of smooth functions on M×M which vanish on the diagonal. Then the quotient sheaf \mathcal{I}/\mathcal{I}^2 consists of equivalence classes of functions which vanish on the diagonal modulo higher order terms. The cotangent sheaf is the pullback of this sheaf to M:

\Gamma T^*M=\Delta^*(\mathcal{I}/\mathcal{I}^2).

By Taylor's theorem, this is a locally free sheaf of modules with respect to the sheaf of germs of smooth functions of M. Thus it defines a vector bundle on M: the cotangent bundle.

[edit] The cotangent bundle as phase space

See main article tautological one-form for details.

The cotangent bundle X=T*M, since it is a vector bundle, can be regarded as a manifold in its own right. Because of the manner in which the definition of T*M relates to the differential topology of the base space M, X possess a canonical one-form θ (also tautological one-form or symplectic potential). The exterior derivative of θ is a symplectic 2-form, out of which a non-degenerate volume form can be built for X. For example, as a result X is always an orientable manifold (meaning that the tangent bundle of X is an orientable vector bundle). A special set of coordinates can be defined on the cotangent bundle; these are called the canonical coordinates. Because cotangent bundles can be thought of as symplectic manifolds, any real function on the cotangent bundle can be interpreted to be a Hamiltonian; thus the cotangent bundle can be understood to be a phase space on which Hamiltonian mechanics plays out.

[edit] The canonical one-form

The cotangent bundle carries a tautological one-form θ also known as the Poincaré 1-form. (The form is also known as the canonical one-form, although this can sometimes lead to confusion.) This means that if we regard T*M as a manifold in its own right, there is a canonical section of the vector bundle T*(T*M) over T*M. This section can be constructed in several ways. The most elementary method is to use local coordinates. Suppose that xi are local coordinates on the base manifold M. In terms of these base coordinates, there are fibre coordinates pi: a one-form at a particular point of T*M has the form pidxi (Einstein summation convention implied). So the manifold T*M itself caries local coordinates (xi,pi) where the x are coordinates on the base and the p are coordinates in the fibre. The canonical one-form is given in these coordinates by

\theta_{(x,p)}=\sum_{{\mathfrak i}=1}^n p_idx^i

Intrinsically, the canonical one-form is given as a pullback. Specifically, if π:T*M→M is the projection of the bundle, then if ω is a one-form at a point x of M (hence an element of T*M),

θ(x,ω) = π * ω.

That is: The one-form assigns to a vector in the tangent bundle of the cotangent bundle the application of the element in the cotangent bundle (a linear functional) to the projection of the vector into the tangent bundle (the differential of the projection of the cotangent bundle to the original manifold).

[edit] Symplectic form

The cotangent bundle has a canonical symplectic 2-form on it, as an exterior derivative of the canonical one-form, the symplectic potential. Proving this form is, indeed, symplectic can be done by noting that being symplectic is a local property: since the cotangent bundle is locally trivial, this definition need only be checked on \mathbb{R}^n \times \mathbb{R}^n. But there the one form defined is the sum of yidxi, and the differential is the canonical symplectic form, the sum of dy_i{\and}dx_i.

[edit] Phase space

If the manifold M represents the set of possible positions in a dynamical system, then the cotangent bundle \!\,T^{*}\!M can be thought of as the set of possible positions and momenta. For example, this is a way to describe the phase space of a pendulum. The state of the pendulum is determined by its position (an angle) and its momentum (or equivalently, its velocity, since its mass is not changing). The entire state space looks like a cylinder. The cylinder is the cotangent bundle of the circle. The above symplectic construction, along with an appropriate energy function, gives a complete determination of the physics of system. See Hamiltonian mechanics for more information, and the article on geodesic flow for an explicit construction of the Hamiltonian equations of motion.

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