Is Every Smoothly Extendable Submanifold Properly Embedded?

  • Context: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter JYM
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    differential geometry
Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the question of whether a smoothly extendable submanifold \( S \) of a manifold \( M \) is properly embedded. Participants explore the implications of smooth function extensions from \( S \) to \( M \) and the conditions under which \( S \) is considered closed or properly embedded.

Discussion Character

  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants propose that if every smooth function on \( S \) extends to \( M \), then \( S \) is properly embedded, but they need to show that \( S \) is closed in \( M \) or that the inclusion map is proper.
  • One participant questions the condition under which \( S = M \) is ruled out.
  • Another participant suggests constructing a smooth function on \( M \) that is zero at a limit point of \( S \) to explore implications for smooth extensions.
  • There is a discussion about the relationship between homeomorphisms and closed mappings, with some arguing that homeomorphisms are not necessarily closed, while others assert that they are closed mappings.
  • Participants discuss examples of immersed submanifolds that are not homeomorphic to their images, such as a dense line in a torus.
  • Some participants highlight subtleties regarding the extension properties of functions on submanifolds, noting that if every smooth function extends globally, then \( S \) must be closed.
  • There is a proposal that if the manifold is compact, then an injective immersion is an embedding, with references to tubular neighborhoods and compactness properties.
  • One participant suggests that the immersion being a closed mapping does not guarantee it is an embedding, citing examples where the image is closed but the mapping is not closed.
  • Another participant provides ideas for showing that an immersion is an embedding and a closed mapping, using bump functions and continuity arguments.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the nature of homeomorphisms and closed mappings, as well as the implications of function extension properties. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the conditions under which \( S \) is properly embedded.

Contextual Notes

There are limitations regarding the assumptions made about the topology of \( S \) and \( M \), as well as the implications of function extension properties that are not fully resolved. The discussion also touches on the nuances of compactness and closed sets in the context of manifold theory.

JYM
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
I try to solve the following problem: If S be submanifold of M and every smooth function f on S has a smooth extentsion to all of M, then S is properly embedded. [smooth means C-infinity].
I can show that S is embedded. What I need is to show either S is closed in M or the inclusion map is proper. If you have any suggestion please well come. Thank you in advance.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
By which condition is ##S=M## ruled out?
 
JYM said:
I try to solve the following problem: If S be submanifold of M and every smooth function f on S has a smooth extentsion to all of M, then S is properly embedded. [smooth means C-infinity].
I can show that S is embedded. What I need is to show either S is closed in M or the inclusion map is proper. If you have any suggestion please well come. Thank you in advance.

I am not sure what your question is. If you already know that the manifold is embedded: that is its topology is the same as its subspace topology in M then it is homeomorphic to its image in M and a homeomorphism is a closed mapping.
 
Last edited:
well, for starters, suppose S is not closed in M and there is a point p of M that is a limit point of S. Can you construct a smooth function f on M that is zero say only at p? what if you then take 1/f? what would that mean?
 
Last edited:
Oh, thanks, I see it. 1/f cannot be extended to all of M since f is zero at p.
I see the fact that S is embedded follows from the following fact but I can't justify.
Let M be a manifold and ϕ : S → M be an injective immersion. Show that ϕ is an embedding if and only if every smooth function f : S → R has an extension to a neighborhood U of ϕ(S).
 
Last edited:
lavinia said:
I am not sure what your question is. If you already know that the manifold is embedded: that is its topology is the same as its subspace topology in M then it is homeomorphic to its image in M and a homeomorphism is a closed mapping.
Lavinia, A homeomorphism is not necessarly closed.
 
JYM said:
Lavinia, A homeomorphism is not necessarly closed.
A homeomorphism is always a closed mapping - the images of closed sets are closed.( Also the images of open sets are open.)

You said that you knew that the manifold was "embedded" which I took to mean that the image of the mapping of ##S## into ##M## was homeomorphic to ##S## in the subspace topology (which you can show that using the function extension property) .

- Here is classic example of an immersed submanifold that is not homeomorphic to its image in the subspace topology.

Think of a torus as the quotient of the Eulicdean plane obtained by identifying points whose ##(x,y)## coordinates differ by an integer. A straight line that makes an irrational angle with the ##x##-axis projects to an immersed 1 dimensional submanifold.

The image of the line is dense in the torus - meaning that any point in the torus is the limit of a Cauchy sequence of points on the line. So there is no way to isolate the image of an open interval through an intersection with an open set in the torus.
 
Last edited:
what about the inclusion of the open disc into the plane? is the image homeomorphic to the source? is the map closed? i think the disagreement is over considering the map as a map into its image versus as a map into the larger ambient manifold.
 
I see your point. The mapping is closed in the subspace topology but if the image isn't closed then it can not map the manifold into a closed set.

So it seems that the function extension property gives the image of ##S## as homeomorphic to ##S## i.e. it is an embedding and if the image is also closed in ##M## then the embedding is a closed mapping.
 
Last edited:
  • #10
there are also subtleties to the extension properties. if S is any submanifold of M (such as the disc in the plane) then every smooth function on S extends smoothly to a neighborhood in M of any given point p of S, but if every smooth function on S extends globally to a smooth function on M, then S must be a closed submanifold of M.
 
  • #11
mathwonk said:
there are also subtleties to the extension properties. if S is any submanifold of M (such as the disc in the plane) then every smooth function on S extends smoothly to a neighborhood in M of any given point p of S, but if every smooth function on S extends globally to a smooth function on M, then S must be a closed submanifold of M.

@mathwonk To see if I understand your points:

- If a function on a submanifold diverges then it cannot be extended to the entire ambient manifold. Such a function would exist If the submanifold had a boundary point. So the function extension property implies that submanifold must be closed.

- If the submanifold is a closed subset then the immersion is a closed mapping. One does not need to worry about its subspace topology.

- But it turns out that the function extension property also implies that the subspace topology makes the immersion into a homeomorphism.

- Going the other way if an injective immersion is closed then it might not be an embedding. If the manifold is not compact an immersion of it might turn back on itself such as bending the positive x-axis in the plane around so that as points approach positive infinity the immersion converges to the origin. In this case, the image of the immersion is closed but it is not an embedding.

I think using a tubular neighborhood argument it can be shown that if the manifold is compact then an injective the immersion of it is an embedding.

nu?
 
  • #12
sounds persuasive. i don't think tubular nbhds are needed for your result. if the manifold is compact then the image is closed, and in a compact (Hausdorff) manifold closed sets are the same as compact sets. thus the immersion is both a closed map and continuous onto its image, hence a homeomorphism onto the image, so the example you gave where the image is closed but the map is not closed does not occur. (In your example the unbounded closed set consisting af all reals greater than or equal to some large number, maps to a bounded non closed set approaching the origin, but not containing it.) so in your example the image of the immersion is closed but the map still is not closed. i am assuming your example is essentially the famous injective immersion of the real line onto the closed figure eight, not a closed map and not a homeomorphism onto its (closed) image.
 
Last edited:
  • #13
I think a standard could buynot defending is 1/x on (0,1)
 
  • #14
I didn't understand your original question. I thought that "closed" meant closed in the subspace topology. If the immersion is an embedding then this is true by definition.

Here are a couple of ideas. The first aims to show that the immersion is an embedding, the second that it is a closed mapping.

Notation: ##i:S→M## is a smooth injective immersion of a manifold ##S## in a manifold ##M##. ##i(S)## is the submanifold of ##M##.

- Embedding:

If you extend a bump function with support ##U⊂i(S)## to all of ##M## then the inverse image of the positive reals is an open set in the ambient manifold whose intersection with the immersed manifold is ##U##.

-Closed Mapping:

I think the function extension property can be used to show that if an infinite sequence in ##S## has no limit point then its image in ##i(S)## can not have a limit point either. Try using bump functions again, this time normalizing them to always achieve the same maximum value.

For this argument it seems necessary to first show that ##i^{-1}## is continuous in the sense that Cauchy sequences in ##i(S)## that converge to a point in ##i(S)## come from convergent Cauchy sequences in ##S##.
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
1K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
2K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
4K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
3K
  • · Replies 20 ·
Replies
20
Views
6K
  • · Replies 10 ·
Replies
10
Views
3K
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
3K
Replies
4
Views
2K
Replies
8
Views
4K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
2K