In
differential geometry
Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multili ...
and
complex geometry
In mathematics, complex geometry is the study of geometric structures and constructions arising out of, or described by, the complex numbers. In particular, complex geometry is concerned with the study of spaces such as complex manifolds and c ...
, a complex manifold is a
manifold
In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a n ...
with an
atlas
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth.
Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...
of
charts
A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tab ...
to the
open unit disc in
, such that the
transition map
In mathematics, particularly topology, one describes a manifold using an atlas. An atlas consists of individual ''charts'' that, roughly speaking, describe individual regions of the manifold. If the manifold is the surface of the Earth, then an a ...
s are
holomorphic
In mathematics, a holomorphic function is a complex-valued function of one or more complex variables that is complex differentiable in a neighbourhood of each point in a domain in complex coordinate space . The existence of a complex derivati ...
.
The term complex manifold is variously used to mean a complex manifold in the sense above (which can be specified as an integrable complex manifold), and an
almost complex manifold
In mathematics, an almost complex manifold is a smooth manifold equipped with a smooth linear complex structure on each tangent space. Every complex manifold is an almost complex manifold, but there are almost complex manifolds that are not compl ...
.
Implications of complex structure
Since
holomorphic functions are much more rigid than
smooth function
In mathematical analysis, the smoothness of a function (mathematics), function is a property measured by the number of Continuous function, continuous Derivative (mathematics), derivatives it has over some domain, called ''differentiability cl ...
s, the theories of smooth and complex manifolds have very different flavors: compact complex manifolds are much closer to
algebraic varieties
Algebraic varieties are the central objects of study in algebraic geometry, a sub-field of mathematics. Classically, an algebraic variety is defined as the set of solutions of a system of polynomial equations over the real or complex numbers. ...
than to differentiable manifolds.
For example, the
Whitney embedding theorem
In mathematics, particularly in differential topology, there are two Whitney embedding theorems, named after Hassler Whitney:
*The strong Whitney embedding theorem states that any smooth real -dimensional manifold (required also to be Hausdorff ...
tells us that every smooth ''n''-dimensional manifold can be
embedded as a smooth submanifold of R
2''n'', whereas it is "rare" for a complex manifold to have a holomorphic embedding into C
''n''. Consider for example any
compact
Compact as used in politics may refer broadly to a pact or treaty; in more specific cases it may refer to:
* Interstate compact
* Blood compact, an ancient ritual of the Philippines
* Compact government, a type of colonial rule utilized in British ...
connected complex manifold ''M'': any holomorphic function on it is constant by
the maximum modulus principle. Now if we had a holomorphic embedding of ''M'' into C
''n'', then the coordinate functions of C
''n'' would restrict to nonconstant holomorphic functions on ''M'', contradicting compactness, except in the case that ''M'' is just a point. Complex manifolds that can be embedded in C
''n'' are called
Stein manifold In mathematics, in the theory of several complex variables and complex manifolds, a Stein manifold is a complex submanifold of the vector space of ''n'' complex dimensions. They were introduced by and named after . A Stein space is similar to a Ste ...
s and form a very special class of manifolds including, for example, smooth complex affine algebraic varieties.
The classification of complex manifolds is much more subtle than that of differentiable manifolds. For example, while in dimensions other than four, a given topological manifold has at most finitely many
smooth structure In mathematics, a smooth structure on a manifold allows for an unambiguous notion of smooth function. In particular, a smooth structure allows one to perform mathematical analysis on the manifold.
Definition
A smooth structure on a manifold M is ...
s, a topological manifold supporting a complex structure can and often does support uncountably many complex structures.
Riemann surface
In mathematics, particularly in complex analysis, a Riemann surface is a connected one-dimensional complex manifold. These surfaces were first studied by and are named after Bernhard Riemann. Riemann surfaces can be thought of as deformed vers ...
s, two dimensional manifolds equipped with a complex structure, which are topologically classified by the
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
, are an important example of this phenomenon. The set of complex structures on a given orientable surface, modulo biholomorphic equivalence, itself forms a complex algebraic variety called a
moduli space
In mathematics, in particular algebraic geometry, a moduli space is a geometric space (usually a scheme or an algebraic stack) whose points represent algebro-geometric objects of some fixed kind, or isomorphism classes of such objects. Such spac ...
, the structure of which remains an area of active research.
Since the transition maps between charts are biholomorphic, complex manifolds are, in particular, smooth and canonically oriented (not just
orientable
In mathematics, orientability is a property of some topological spaces such as real vector spaces, Euclidean spaces, surfaces, and more generally manifolds that allows a consistent definition of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". A space i ...
: a biholomorphic map to (a subset of) C
''n'' gives an orientation, as biholomorphic maps are orientation-preserving).
Examples of complex manifolds
*
Riemann surface
In mathematics, particularly in complex analysis, a Riemann surface is a connected one-dimensional complex manifold. These surfaces were first studied by and are named after Bernhard Riemann. Riemann surfaces can be thought of as deformed vers ...
s.
*
Calabi–Yau manifold
In algebraic geometry, a Calabi–Yau manifold, also known as a Calabi–Yau space, is a particular type of manifold which has properties, such as Ricci flatness, yielding applications in theoretical physics. Particularly in superstri ...
s.
* The Cartesian product of two complex manifolds.
* The inverse image of any noncritical value of a holomorphic map.
Smooth complex algebraic varieties
Smooth complex
algebraic varieties
Algebraic varieties are the central objects of study in algebraic geometry, a sub-field of mathematics. Classically, an algebraic variety is defined as the set of solutions of a system of polynomial equations over the real or complex numbers. ...
are complex manifolds, including:
* Complex vector spaces.
*
Complex projective space
In mathematics, complex projective space is the projective space with respect to the field of complex numbers. By analogy, whereas the points of a real projective space label the lines through the origin of a real Euclidean space, the points of a ...
s, P
''n''(C).
* Complex
Grassmannian
In mathematics, the Grassmannian is a space that parameterizes all -Dimension, dimensional linear subspaces of the -dimensional vector space . For example, the Grassmannian is the space of lines through the origin in , so it is the same as the ...
s.
* Complex
Lie groups
In mathematics, a Lie group (pronounced ) is a group that is also a differentiable manifold. A manifold is a space that locally resembles Euclidean space, whereas groups define the abstract concept of a binary operation along with the additi ...
such as GL(''n'', C) or Sp(''n'', C).
Similarly, the
quaternionic
In mathematics, the quaternion number system extends the complex numbers. Quaternions were first described by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton in 1843 and applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. Hamilton defined a quatern ...
analogs of these are also complex manifolds.
Simply connected
The
simply connected 1-dimensional complex manifolds are isomorphic to either:
* Δ, the unit
disk
Disk or disc may refer to:
* Disk (mathematics), a geometric shape
* Disk storage
Music
* Disc (band), an American experimental music band
* ''Disk'' (album), a 1995 EP by Moby
Other uses
* Disk (functional analysis), a subset of a vector sp ...
in C
* C, the complex plane
* Ĉ, the
Riemann sphere
In mathematics, the Riemann sphere, named after Bernhard Riemann, is a model of the extended complex plane: the complex plane plus one point at infinity. This extended plane represents the extended complex numbers, that is, the complex numbers pl ...
Note that there are inclusions between these as
Δ ⊆ C ⊆ Ĉ, but that there are no non-constant maps in the other direction, by
Liouville's theorem.
Disc vs. space vs. polydisc
The following spaces are different as complex manifolds, demonstrating the more rigid geometric character of complex manifolds (compared to smooth manifolds):
* complex space
.
* the unit disc or
open ball
In mathematics, a ball is the solid figure bounded by a ''sphere''; it is also called a solid sphere. It may be a closed ball (including the boundary points that constitute the sphere) or an open ball (excluding them).
These concepts are defi ...
::
* the
polydisc
In the theory of functions of several complex variables, a branch of mathematics, a polydisc is a Cartesian product of discs.
More specifically, if we denote by D(z,r) the open disc of center ''z'' and radius ''r'' in the complex plane, then a ...
::
Almost complex structures
An
almost complex structure
In mathematics, an almost complex manifold is a smooth manifold equipped with a smooth linear complex structure on each tangent space. Every complex manifold is an almost complex manifold, but there are almost complex manifolds that are not complex ...
on a real 2n-manifold is a GL(''n'', C)-structure (in the sense of
G-structures) – that is, the tangent bundle is equipped with a
linear complex structure
In mathematics, a complex structure on a real vector space ''V'' is an automorphism of ''V'' that squares to the minus identity, −''I''. Such a structure on ''V'' allows one to define multiplication by complex scalars in a canonical fashion so ...
.
Concretely, this is an
endomorphism
In mathematics, an endomorphism is a morphism from a mathematical object to itself. An endomorphism that is also an isomorphism is an automorphism. For example, an endomorphism of a vector space is a linear map , and an endomorphism of a gr ...
of the
tangent bundle
In differential geometry, the tangent bundle of a differentiable manifold M is a manifold TM which assembles all the tangent vectors in M . As a set, it is given by the disjoint unionThe disjoint union ensures that for any two points and of ...
whose square is −''I''; this endomorphism is analogous to multiplication by the imaginary number ''i'', and is denoted ''J'' (to avoid confusion with the identity matrix ''I''). An almost complex manifold is necessarily even-dimensional.
An almost complex structure is ''weaker'' than a complex structure: any complex manifold has an almost complex structure, but not every almost complex structure comes from a complex structure. Note that every even-dimensional real manifold has an almost complex structure defined locally from the local coordinate chart. The question is whether this complex structure can be defined globally. An almost complex structure that comes from a complex structure is called
integrable
In mathematics, integrability is a property of certain dynamical systems. While there are several distinct formal definitions, informally speaking, an integrable system is a dynamical system with sufficiently many conserved quantities, or first ...
, and when one wishes to specify a complex structure as opposed to an almost complex structure, one says an ''integrable'' complex structure. For integrable complex structures the so-called
Nijenhuis tensor
In mathematics, an almost complex manifold is a smooth manifold equipped with a smooth linear complex structure on each tangent space. Every complex manifold is an almost complex manifold, but there are almost complex manifolds that are not compl ...
vanishes. This tensor is defined on pairs of vector fields, ''X'', ''Y'' by
:
For example, the 6-dimensional
sphere
A sphere () is a Geometry, geometrical object that is a solid geometry, three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...
S
6 has a natural almost complex structure arising from the fact that it is the
orthogonal complement In the mathematical fields of linear algebra and functional analysis, the orthogonal complement of a subspace ''W'' of a vector space ''V'' equipped with a bilinear form ''B'' is the set ''W''⊥ of all vectors in ''V'' that are orthogonal to every ...
of ''i'' in the unit sphere of the
octonion
In mathematics, the octonions are a normed division algebra over the real numbers, a kind of hypercomplex number system. The octonions are usually represented by the capital letter O, using boldface or blackboard bold \mathbb O. Octonions hav ...
s, but this is not a complex structure. (The question of whether it has a complex structure is known as the ''Hopf problem,'' after
Heinz Hopf
Heinz Hopf (19 November 1894 – 3 June 1971) was a German mathematician who worked on the fields of topology and geometry.
Early life and education
Hopf was born in Gräbschen, Germany (now , part of Wrocław, Poland), the son of Elizabeth ( ...
.
) Using an almost complex structure we can make sense of holomorphic maps and ask about the existence of holomorphic coordinates on the manifold. The existence of holomorphic coordinates is equivalent to saying the manifold is complex (which is what the chart definition says).
Tensoring the tangent bundle with the complex numbers we get the ''complexified'' tangent bundle, on which multiplication by complex numbers makes sense (even if we started with a real manifold). The eigenvalues of an almost complex structure are ±''i'' and the eigenspaces form sub-bundles denoted by ''T''
0,1''M'' and ''T''
1,0''M''. The
Newlander–Nirenberg theorem shows that an almost complex structure is actually a complex structure precisely when these subbundles are ''involutive'', i.e., closed under the Lie bracket of vector fields, and such an almost complex structure is called
integrable
In mathematics, integrability is a property of certain dynamical systems. While there are several distinct formal definitions, informally speaking, an integrable system is a dynamical system with sufficiently many conserved quantities, or first ...
.
Kähler and Calabi–Yau manifolds
One can define an analogue of a
Riemannian metric
In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold or Riemannian space , so called after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is a real, smooth manifold ''M'' equipped with a positive-definite inner product ''g'p'' on the tangent space '' ...
for complex manifolds, called a
Hermitian metric
In mathematics, and more specifically in differential geometry, a Hermitian manifold is the complex analogue of a Riemannian manifold. More precisely, a Hermitian manifold is a complex manifold with a smoothly varying Hermitian inner product on ea ...
. Like a Riemannian metric, a Hermitian metric consists of a smoothly varying, positive definite inner product on the tangent bundle, which is Hermitian with respect to the complex structure on the tangent space at each point. As in the Riemannian case, such metrics always exist in abundance on any complex manifold. If the skew symmetric part of such a metric is
symplectic, i.e. closed and nondegenerate, then the metric is called
Kähler. Kähler structures are much more difficult to come by and are much more rigid.
Examples of
Kähler manifold
In mathematics and especially differential geometry, a Kähler manifold is a manifold with three mutually compatible structures: a complex structure, a Riemannian structure, and a symplectic structure. The concept was first studied by Jan Arnold ...
s include smooth
projective varieties
In algebraic geometry, a projective variety over an algebraically closed field ''k'' is a subset of some projective ''n''-space \mathbb^n over ''k'' that is the zero-locus of some finite family of homogeneous polynomials of ''n'' + 1 variables wi ...
and more generally any complex submanifold of a Kähler manifold. The
Hopf manifold In complex geometry, a Hopf manifold is obtained
as a quotient of the complex vector space
(with zero deleted) (^n\backslash 0)
by a free action of the group \Gamma \cong of
integers, with the generator \gamma
of \Gamma acting by holomorphic co ...
s are examples of complex manifolds that are not Kähler. To construct one, take a complex vector space minus the origin and consider the action of the group of integers on this space by multiplication by exp(''n''). The quotient is a complex manifold whose first
Betti number
In algebraic topology, the Betti numbers are used to distinguish topological spaces based on the connectivity of ''n''-dimensional simplicial complexes. For the most reasonable finite-dimensional spaces (such as compact manifolds, finite simplicia ...
is one, so by the
Hodge theory, it cannot be Kähler.
A
Calabi–Yau manifold
In algebraic geometry, a Calabi–Yau manifold, also known as a Calabi–Yau space, is a particular type of manifold which has properties, such as Ricci flatness, yielding applications in theoretical physics. Particularly in superstri ...
can be defined as a compact
Ricci-flat In the mathematical field of differential geometry, Ricci-flatness is a condition on the curvature of a Riemannian manifold. Ricci-flat manifolds are a special kind of Einstein manifold. In theoretical physics, Ricci-flat Lorentzian manifolds are ...
Kähler manifold or equivalently one whose first
Chern class
In mathematics, in particular in algebraic topology, differential geometry and algebraic geometry, the Chern classes are characteristic classes associated with complex vector bundles. They have since found applications in physics, Calabi–Yau ...
vanishes.
See also
*
Complex dimension In mathematics, complex dimension usually refers to the dimension of a complex manifold or a complex algebraic variety. These are spaces in which the local neighborhoods of points (or of non-singular points in the case of a variety) are modeled on a ...
*
Complex analytic variety
*
Quaternionic manifold In differential geometry, a quaternionic manifold is a quaternionic analog of a complex manifold. The definition is more complicated and technical than the one for complex manifolds due in part to the noncommutativity of the quaternions and in p ...
*
Real-complex manifold
Footnotes
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Complex Manifold
Differential geometry