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Exterior derivative
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In differential geometry, the exterior derivative extends the concept of the differential of a function, which is a form of degree zero, to differential forms of higher degree. Its current form was invented by Élie Cartan.
The exterior derivative d has the property that d2 = 0 and is the differential (coboundary) used to define de Rham (and Alexander-Spanier) cohomology on forms. Integration of forms gives a natural homomorphism from the de Rham cohomology to the singular cohomology of a smooth manifold.
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Encyclopedia
In differential geometry, the exterior derivative extends the concept of the differential of a function, which is a form of degree zero, to differential forms of higher degree. Its current form was invented by Élie Cartan.
The exterior derivative d has the property that d2 = 0 and is the differential (coboundary) used to define de Rham (and Alexander-Spanier) cohomology on forms. Integration of forms gives a natural homomorphism from the de Rham cohomology to the singular cohomology of a smooth manifold. The theorem of de Rham shows that this map is actually an isomorphism. In this sense, the exterior derivative is the "dual" of the boundary map on singular simplices.
Definition
The exterior derivative of a differential form of degree k is a differential form of degree k + 1. There are a variety of equivalent definitions of the exterior derivative.
Exterior derivative of a function
If ƒ is a smooth function, then the exterior derivative of ƒ is its differential of ƒ. That is, dƒ is the unique one form such that for every smooth vector field X,
Thus the exterior derivative of a function (or 0-form) is a one-form.
Exterior derivative of a k-form
The exterior derivative is defined to be the unique R-linear mapping from k-forms to (k+1)-forms satisfying the following properties:
- dƒ is the differential of ƒ for smooth functions ƒ.
- for any smooth function ƒ.
- where α is a p-form. That is to say, d is a derivation of degree 1 on the exterior algebra of differential forms.
The second defining property holds in more generality: in fact, for any k-form α. This is part of the Poincaré lemma. The third defining property implies as a special case that if ƒ is a function and α a k-form, then
because functions are forms of degree 0.
Exterior derivative in local coordinates
Alternatively, one can work entirely in a local coordinate system (x1,…,xn). First, the coordinate differentials dx1,…,dxn form a basic set of one-forms within the coordinate chart. Given a multi-index with the exterior derivative of a k-form
-
where
over Rn is defined as
-
For general k-forms ω = ΣI fI dxI (where the components of the multi-index I run over all the values in ), the definition of the exterior derivative is extended linearly. Note that whenever is one of the components of the multi-index then (see wedge product).
The definition of the exterior derivative in local coordinates follows from the preceding definition. Indeed, if , then
we have here interpreted fI as a zero-form, and then applied the properties of the exterior derivative.
Invariant formula
Alternatively, an explicit formula can be given for the exterior derivative of a k-form ω, when paired with k+1 arbitrary smooth vector fields V0,V1, …, Vk:
-
where denotes Lie bracket and the hat denotes the omission of that element:
In particular, for 1-forms we have:
Examples
1
Consider over a 1-form basis .
The exterior derivative is:
-
The last formula follows easily from the properties of the wedge product.
2
For a 1-form on R2 we have, by applying the above formula to each term (consider and in the following sum),
-
Further properties
Closed and exact forms
Differential forms in the kernel of d are said to be closed forms. The image of d is said to consist of exact forms (cf. exact differentials). It is immediate that exact forms are closed. Closed and exact forms are related, because of the identity for any k-form α. This implies that every exact form is closed. The converse is true only in contractable regions, by the Poincaré lemma.
Naturality
The exterior derivative is natural. If f: M ? N is a smooth map and Ok is the contravariant smooth functor that assigns to each manifold the space of k-forms on the manifold, then the following diagram commutes
so d(f*?) = f*d?, where f* denotes the pullback of f. This follows from that f*?(·), by definition, is ?(f*(·)), f* being the pushforward of f. Thus d is a natural transformation from Ok to Ok+1.
The exterior derivative in calculus
Most vector calculus operators are special cases of, or have close relationships to, the notion of exterior differentiation.
A smooth function f: Rn → R is a 0-form. The exterior derivative of this 0-form is the 1-form
That is, the form df acts on any vector field V by outputting, at each point, the scalar product ⟨ , ⟩ of V with the gradient of f.
The 1-form df is a section of the cotangent bundle, that gives a local linear approximation to f in the cotangent space at each point.
A vector field V = (v1, v2, . . . vn) on Rn has a corresponding (n-1)-form
(For instance, when n = 3, in three-dimensional space, the 2-form ωV is locally the scalar triple product with V.) The integral of ωV over a hypersurface is the flux of V over that hypersurface.
The exterior derivative of this (n-1)-form is the n-form
Curl
A vector field V on Rn also has a corresponding 1-form
,
Locally, ηV is the dot product with V. The integral of ηV along a path is the work done against -V along that path.
When n = 3, in three-dimensional space, the exterior derivative of the 1-form ηV is the 2-form
Invariant formulations of grad, curl, and div
The three operators above can be written in coordinate-free notation as follows:
-
where is the Hodge star operator and and are the musical isomorphisms.
See also
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