11/2/2019 Fiber bundle - Wikipedia

Fiber bundle
In mathematics, and particularly topology, a fiber bundle (or, in British English, fibre bundle) is a space that
is locally a product space, but globally may have a different topological structure. Specifically, the similarity
between a space E and a product space is defined using a continuous surjective map

that in small regions of E behaves just like a projection from corresponding regions of to . The map ,
called the projection or submersion of the bundle, is regarded as part of the structure of the bundle. The
space is known as the total space of the fiber bundle, as the base space, and the fiber.
A cylindrical hairbrush showing the
In the trivial case, is just , and the map π is just the projection from the product space to the first intuition behind the term "fiber
factor. This is called a trivial bundle. Examples of non-trivial fiber bundles include the Möbius strip and Klein bundle". This hairbrush is like a fiber
bundle in which the base space is a
bottle, as well as nontrivial covering spaces. Fiber bundles such as the tangent bundle of a manifold and more
cylinder and the fibers (bristles) are
general vector bundles play an important role in differential geometry and differential topology, as do principal line segments. The mapping
bundles. would take a point on any
bristle and map it to its root on the
Mappings between total spaces of fiber bundles that "commute" with the projection maps are known as bundle cylinder.
maps, and the class of fiber bundles forms a category with respect to such mappings. A bundle map from the
base space itself (with the identity mapping as projection) to is called a section of . Fiber bundles can be
specialized in a number of ways, the most common of which is requiring that the transitions between the local trivial patches lie in a certain topological
group, known as the structure group, acting on the fiber .

Contents
History
Formal definition
Examples
Trivial bundle
Nontrivial bundles
Möbius strip
Klein bottle
Covering map
Vector and principal bundles
Sphere bundles
Mapping tori
Quotient spaces
Sections
Structure groups and transition functions
Bundle maps
Differentiable fiber bundles
Generalizations
See also
Notes
References
External links

History
In topology, the terms fiber (German: Faser) and fiber space (gefaserter Raum) appeared for the first time in a paper by Herbert Seifert in 1933,[1][2]
but his definitions are limited to a very special case. The main difference from the present day conception of a fiber space, however, was that for Seifert what
is now called the base space (topological space) of a fiber (topological) space E was not part of the structure, but derived from it as a quotient space of E.
The first definition of fiber space was given by Hassler Whitney in 1935 [3] under the name sphere space, but in 1940 Whitney changed the name to
sphere bundle.[4]

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The theory of fibered spaces, of which vector bundles, principal bundles, topological fibrations and fibered manifolds are a special case, is attributed to
Seifert, Heinz Hopf, Jacques Feldbau,[5] Whitney, Norman Steenrod, Charles Ehresmann,[6][7][8] Jean-Pierre Serre,[9] and others.

Fiber bundles became their own object of study in the period 1935–1940. The first general definition appeared in the works of Whitney.[10]

Whitney came to the general definition of a fiber bundle from his study of a more particular notion of a sphere bundle,[11] that is a fiber bundle whose fiber
is a sphere of arbitrary dimension.[12]

Formal definition
A fiber bundle is a structure , where , , and are topological spaces and is a continuous surjection satisfying a local triviality
condition outlined below. The space is called the base space of the bundle, the total space, and the fiber. The map π is called the projection
map (or bundle projection). We shall assume in what follows that the base space is connected.

We require that for every , there is an open neighborhood of (which will be called a trivializing neighborhood) such that there is a
homeomorphism (where is the product space) in such a way that π agrees with the projection onto the first factor. That is, the
following diagram should commute:

(1)

where is the natural projection and is a homeomorphism. The set of all is called a local
trivialization of the bundle.

Thus for any , the preimage is homeomorphic to (since proj1−1({p}) clearly is) and is called the fiber over p. Every fiber bundle
is an open map, since projections of products are open maps. Therefore carries the quotient topology determined by the map π.

A fiber bundle is often denoted

(2)

that, in analogy with a short exact sequence, indicates which space is the fiber, total space and base space, as well as the map from total to base space.

A smooth fiber bundle is a fiber bundle in the category of smooth manifolds. That is, , , and are required to be smooth manifolds and all the
functions above are required to be smooth maps.

Examples

Trivial bundle
Let and let be the projection onto the first factor. Then is a fiber bundle (of ) over . Here is not just locally a product but
globally one. Any such fiber bundle is called a trivial bundle. Any fiber bundle over a contractible CW-complex is trivial.

Nontrivial bundles

Möbius strip
Perhaps the simplest example of a nontrivial bundle is the Möbius strip. It has the circle that runs lengthwise along the center of the strip as a base and
a line segment for the fiber , so the Möbius strip is a bundle of the line segment over the circle. A neighborhood of ( where ) is an arc; in
the picture, this is the length of one of the squares. The preimage in the picture is a (somewhat twisted) slice of the strip four squares wide and one
long.

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A homeomorphism ( in the Formal Definition section) exists that maps the preimage of (the trivializing
neighborhood) to a slice of a cylinder: curved, but not twisted. This pair locally trivializes the strip. The corresponding
trivial bundle would be a cylinder, but the Möbius strip has an overall "twist". This twist is visible only globally;
locally the Möbius strip and the cylinder are identical (making a single vertical cut in either gives the same space).

Klein bottle
A similar nontrivial bundle is the Klein bottle which can be viewed as a "twisted" circle bundle over another circle. The
corresponding non-twisted (trivial) bundle is the 2-torus, . The Möbius strip is a
nontrivial bundle over the
circle.

The Klein bottle A torus.

immersed in three-
dimensional space.

Covering map
A covering space is a fiber bundle such that the bundle projection is a local homeomorphism. It follows that the fiber is a discrete space.

Vector and principal bundles

A special class of fiber bundles, called vector bundles, are those whose fibers are vector spaces (to qualify as a vector bundle the structure group of the
bundle — see below — must be a linear group). Important examples of vector bundles include the tangent bundle and cotangent bundle of a smooth
manifold. From any vector bundle, one can construct the frame bundle of bases which is a principal bundle (see below).

Another special class of fiber bundles, called principal bundles, are bundles on whose fibers a free and transitive action by a group is given, so that
each fiber is a principal homogeneous space. The bundle is often specified along with the group by referring to it as a principal -bundle. The group is
also the structure group of the bundle. Given a representation of on a vector space , a vector bundle with as a structure group may be
constructed, known as the associated bundle.

Sphere bundles
A sphere bundle is a fiber bundle whose fiber is an n-sphere. Given a vector bundle with a metric (such as the tangent bundle to a Riemannian
manifold) one can construct the associated unit sphere bundle, for which the fiber over a point is the set of all unit vectors in . When the vector
bundle in question is the tangent bundle , the unit sphere bundle is known as the unit tangent bundle.

A sphere bundle is partially characterized by its Euler class, which is a degree cohomology class in the total space of the bundle. In the case the
sphere bundle is called a circle bundle and the Euler class is equal to the first Chern class, which characterizes the topology of the bundle completely. For
any , given the Euler class of a bundle, one can calculate its cohomology using a long exact sequence called the Gysin sequence.

Mapping tori
If X is a topological space and is a homeomorphism then the mapping torus has a natural structure of a fiber bundle over the circle with
fiber . Mapping tori of homeomorphisms of surfaces are of particular importance in 3-manifold topology.

Quotient spaces
If is a topological group and is a closed subgroup, then under some circumstances, the quotient space together with the quotient map
is a fiber bundle, whose fiber is the topological space . A necessary and sufficient condition for ( ) to form a fiber bundle is
that the mapping admit local cross-sections (Steenrod 1951, §7).

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The most general conditions under which the quotient map will admit local cross-sections are not known, although if is a Lie group and a closed
subgroup (and thus a Lie subgroup by Cartan's theorem), then the quotient map is a fiber bundle. One example of this is the Hopf fibration, which
is a fiber bundle over the sphere whose total space is . From the perspective of Lie groups, can be identified with the special unitary group .
The abelian subgroup of diagonal matrices is isomorphic to the circle group , and the quotient is diffeomorphic to the sphere.

More generally, if is any topological group and a closed subgroup which also happens to be a Lie group, then is a fiber bundle.

Sections
A section (or cross section) of a fiber bundle is a continuous map such that for all x in B. Since bundles do not in general have
globally defined sections, one of the purposes of the theory is to account for their existence. The obstruction to the existence of a section can often be
measured by a cohomology class, which leads to the theory of characteristic classes in algebraic topology.

The most well-known example is the hairy ball theorem, where the Euler class is the obstruction to the tangent bundle of the 2-sphere having a nowhere
vanishing section.

Often one would like to define sections only locally (especially when global sections do not exist). A local section of a fiber bundle is a continuous map
where U is an open set in B and for all x in U. If is a local trivialization chart then local sections always exist over U. Such
sections are in 1-1 correspondence with continuous maps . Sections form a sheaf.

Structure groups and transition functions

Fiber bundles often come with a group of symmetries which describe the matching conditions between overlapping local trivialization charts. Specifically,
let G be a topological group which acts continuously on the fiber space F on the left. We lose nothing if we require G to act faithfully on F so that it may be
thought of as a group of homeomorphisms of F. A G-atlas for the bundle (E, B, π, F) is a set of local trivializations such that for any for
the overlapping charts and the function

is given by

where tij : Ui ∩ Uj → G is a continuous map called a transition function. Two G-atlases are equivalent if their union is also a G-atlas. A G-bundle is a
fiber bundle with an equivalence class of G-atlases. The group G is called the structure group of the bundle; the analogous term in physics is gauge group.

In the smooth category, a G-bundle is a smooth fiber bundle where G is a Lie group and the corresponding action on F is smooth and the transition
functions are all smooth maps.

The transition functions tij satisfy the following conditions

1.
2.
3.

The third condition applies on triple overlaps Ui ∩ Uj ∩ Uk and is called the cocycle condition (see Čech cohomology). The importance of this is that the
transition functions determine the fiber bundle (if one assumes the Čech cocycle condition).

A principal G-bundle is a G-bundle where the fiber F is a principal homogeneous space for the left action of G itself (equivalently, one can specify that the
action of G on the fiber F is free and transitive, i.e. regular). In this case, it is often a matter of convenience to identify F with G and so obtain a (right) action
of G on the principal bundle.

Bundle maps
It is useful to have notions of a mapping between two fiber bundles. Suppose that M and N are base spaces, and and are fiber
bundles over M and N, respectively. A bundle map (or bundle morphism) consists of a pair of continuous[13] functions

such that . That is, the following diagram commutes:

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For fiber bundles with structure group G and whose total spaces are (right) G-spaces (such as a principal bundle), bundle morphisms are also required to be
G-equivariant on the fibers. This means that is also G-morphism from one G-space to another, i.e., for all and .

In case the base spaces M and N coincide, then a bundle morphism over M from the fiber bundle to is a map such that
. This means that the bundle map covers the identity of M. That is, and the diagram commutes

Assume that both and are defined over the same base space M. A bundle isomorphism is a bundle map between πE : E →
M and πF : F → M such that and such that φ is also a homeomorphism.[14]

Differentiable fiber bundles

In the category of differentiable manifolds, fiber bundles arise naturally as submersions of one manifold to another. Not every (differentiable) submersion
ƒ : M → N from a differentiable manifold M to another differentiable manifold N gives rise to a differentiable fiber bundle. For one thing, the map must be
surjective, and (M,N,ƒ) is called a fibered manifold. However, this necessary condition is not quite sufficient, and there are a variety of sufficient conditions
in common use.

If M and N are compact and connected, then any submersion f : M → N gives rise to a fiber bundle in the sense that there is a fiber space F diffeomorphic to
each of the fibers such that (E,B,π,F) = (M,N,ƒ,F) is a fiber bundle. (Surjectivity of ƒ follows by the assumptions already given in this case.) More generally,
the assumption of compactness can be relaxed if the submersion ƒ : M → N is assumed to be a surjective proper map, meaning that ƒ−1(K) is compact for
every compact subset K of N. Another sufficient condition, due to Ehresmann (1951), is that if ƒ : M → N is a surjective submersion with M and N
differentiable manifolds such that the preimage ƒ−1{x} is compact and connected for all x ∈ N, then ƒ admits a compatible fiber bundle structure (Michor
2008, §17).

Generalizations
The notion of a bundle applies to many more categories in mathematics, at the expense of appropriately modifying the local triviality condition; cf.
principal homogeneous space and torsor (algebraic geometry).
In topology, a fibration is a mapping π : E → B which has certain homotopy-theoretic properties in common with fiber bundles. Specifically, under mild
technical assumptions a fiber bundle always has the homotopy lifting property or homotopy covering property (see Steenrod (1951, 11.7) for details).
This is the defining property of a fibration.
A section of a fiber bundle is a "function whose output range is continuously dependent on the input." This property is formally captured in the notion of
dependent type.

See also
Covering map Universal bundle
Fibration Fibered manifold
Gauge theory Vector bundle
Hopf bundle Affine bundle
I-bundle Equivariant bundle
Principal bundle Natural bundle
Projective bundle Quasifibration
Pullback bundle

Notes
1. Seifert, Herbert (1933). "Topologie dreidimensionaler gefaserter Räume". Acta Mathematica. 60: 147–238. doi:10.1007/bf02398271 (https://doi.org/10.1
007%2Fbf02398271).
2. "Topologie Dreidimensionaler Gefaserter Räume" (https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.acta/1485887992) on Project Euclid.

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3. Whitney, Hassler (1935). "Sphere spaces". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 21 (7): 464–468.
doi:10.1073/pnas.21.7.464 (https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.21.7.464).
4. Whitney, Hassler (1940). "On the theory of sphere bundles". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 26 (2):
148–153. doi:10.1073/pnas.26.2.148 (https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.26.2.148). PMID 16588328 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16588328).
5. Feldbau, Jacques (1939). "Sur la classification des espaces fibrés". Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. 208: 1621–1623.
6. Ehresmann, Charles (1947). "Sur la théorie des espaces fibrés". Coll. Top. Alg. Paris. C.N.R.S.: 3–15.
7. Ehresmann, Charles (1947). "Sur les espaces fibrés différentiables". Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. 224: 1611–1612.
8. Ehresmann, Charles (1955). "Les prolongements d'un espace fibré différentiable". Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. 240: 1755–1757.
9. Serre, Jean-Pierre (1951). "Homologie singulière des espaces fibrés. Applications". Annals of Mathematics. 54 (3): 425–505. doi:10.2307/1969485 (htt
ps://doi.org/10.2307%2F1969485). JSTOR 1969485 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1969485).
10. See Steenrod (1951, Preface)
11. In his early works, Whitney referred to the sphere bundles as the “sphere-spaces”. See, for example:

Whitney, Hassler (1935). "Sphere spaces". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 21 (7): 462–468. doi:10.1073/pnas.21.7.464 (https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.21.
7.464).
Whitney, Hassler (1937). "Topological properties of differentiable manifolds". Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 43 (12): 785–805. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-
1937-06642-0 (https://doi.org/10.1090%2Fs0002-9904-1937-06642-0).
12. Whitney, Hassler (1940). "On the theory of sphere bundles" (http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/26/2/148.full.pdf) (PDF). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 26 (2):
148–153. doi:10.1073/pnas.26.2.148 (https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.26.2.148). PMC 1078023 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10780
23). PMID 16588328 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16588328).
13. Depending on the category of spaces involved, the functions may be assumed to have properties other than continuity. For instance, in the category of
differentiable manifolds, the functions are assumed to be smooth. In the category of algebraic varieties, they are regular morphisms.
14. Or is, at least, invertible in the appropriate category; e.g., a diffeomorphism.

References
Steenrod, Norman (1951), The Topology of Fibre Bundles, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-08055-0
Bleecker, David (1981), Gauge Theory and Variational Principles (https://archive.org/details/gaugetheoryvaria00blee_0), Reading, Mass: Addison-
Wesley publishing, ISBN 978-0-201-10096-9
Ehresmann, Charles. "Les connexions infinitésimales dans un espace fibré différentiable". Colloque de Topologie (Espaces fibrés), Bruxelles, 1950.
Georges Thone, Liège; Masson et Cie., Paris, 1951. pp. 29–55.
Husemoller, Dale (1994), Fibre Bundles, Springer Verlag, ISBN 978-0-387-94087-8
Michor, Peter W. (2008), Topics in Differential Geometry, Graduate Studies in Mathematics, Vol. 93, Providence: American Mathematical Society,
ISBN 978-0-8218-2003-2
Voitsekhovskii, M.I. (2001) [1994], "Fibre space" (https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php?title=F/f040060), in Hazewinkel, Michiel (ed.),
Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. / Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 978-1-55608-010-4

External links
Fiber Bundle (https://web.archive.org/web/20040808115056/http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/FiberBundle.html), PlanetMath
Rowland, Todd. "Fiber Bundle" (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FiberBundle.html). MathWorld.
Making John Robinson's Symbolic Sculpture `Eternity' (http://www.popmath.org.uk/sculpmath/pagesm/fibundle.html)
Sardanashvily, Gennadi, Fibre bundles, jet manifolds and Lagrangian theory. Lectures for theoreticians, arXiv:0908.1886

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