nLab vector field

Contents

Context

Differential geometry

synthetic differential geometry

Introductions

from point-set topology to differentiable manifolds

geometry of physics: coordinate systems, smooth spaces, manifolds, smooth homotopy types, supergeometry

Differentials

V-manifolds

smooth space

Tangency

The magic algebraic facts

Theorems

Axiomatics

Models

Lie theory, ∞-Lie theory

differential equations, variational calculus

Chern-Weil theory, ∞-Chern-Weil theory

Cartan geometry (super, higher)

Contents

Idea

A vector field is a section of a vector bundle.

More specifically, a vector field is a tangent vector field which is a section of a tangent bundle. Hence this is a function which picks a tangent vector at each point of a manifold, such that this assignment is suitably differentiable.

Equivalently this is a rank -tensor field on

Properties

As derivations of smooth functions

Vector fields may be identified with derivations on the algebra of smooth functions. See the article derivations of smooth functions are vector fields.

References

For instance section 1.3 and 1.4 of

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Last revised on August 28, 2024 at 16:37:48. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.

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