Symplectic manifolds arise from classical mechanics; in particular, they are a generalization of the phase space of a closed system.[1][2] In the same way the Hamilton equations allow one to derive the time evolution of a system from a set of differential equations, the symplectic form should allow one to obtain a vector field describing the flow of the system from the differential of a Hamiltonian function .[3] So we require a linear map from the tangent manifold to the cotangent manifold, or equivalently, an element of . Letting denote a section of , the requirement that be non-degenerate ensures that for every differential there is a unique corresponding vector field such that . Since one desires the Hamiltonian to be constant along flow lines, one should have , which implies that is alternating and hence a 2-form. Finally, one makes the requirement that should not change under flow lines, i.e. that the Lie derivative of along vanishes. Applying Cartan's formula, this amounts to (here is the interior product):
so that, on repeating this argument for different smooth functions such that the corresponding span the tangent space at each point the argument is applied at, we see that the requirement for the vanishing Lie derivative along flows of corresponding to arbitrary smooth is equivalent to the requirement that ω should be closed.
Definition
Let be a smooth manifold. A symplectic form on is a closed non-degenerate differential 2-form.[4][5] Here, non-degenerate means that for every point , the skew-symmetric pairing on the tangent space defined by is non-degenerate. That is to say, if there exists an such that for all , then . The closed condition means that the exterior derivative of vanishes.[4][5]
A symplectic manifold is a pair where is a smooth manifold and is a symplectic form. Assigning a symplectic form to is referred to as giving a symplectic structure. Since in odd dimensions, skew-symmetric matrices are always singular, nondegeneracy implies that is even.[6]
By nondegeneracy, can be used to define a pair of musical isomorphisms, such that for any two vector fields , and .
A symplectic manifold is exact iff the symplectic form is exact, i.e. equal to for some 1-form . The symplectic form on any compact symplectic manifold without boundary is inexact, by Stokes' theorem.[7]
A (local) Liouville form is any (locally defined) such that . A vector field is (locally) Liouville iff . By Cartan's magic formula, this is equivalent to . A Liouville vector field can thus be interpreted as a way to recover a (local) Liouville form. By Darboux's theorem, around any point there exists a local Liouville form, though it might not exist globally.
On a symplectic manifold, every smooth function determines a Hamiltonian vector field by , up to sign convention.[9] The integral curves of are the Hamiltonian flow of . In classical mechanics, is the energy function and the symplectic form encodes Hamilton's equations. The set of all Hamiltonian vector fields make up a Lie algebra, and is written as where is the Lie bracket.
Given any two smooth functions , their Poisson bracket is defined by .[10] This makes any symplectic manifold into a Poisson manifold.[11] The Poisson bivector is a bivector field defined by , or equivalently, by . The Poisson bracket and Lie bracket are related by .
Basic properties
If is a symplectic manifold of dimension , then is a nowhere-vanishing top-degree form. Thus every symplectic manifold is orientable and has a natural volume form, called the symplectic volume form.[6]
Unlike a Riemannian metric, a symplectic form does not define lengths or angles. By Darboux's theorem, all symplectic manifolds of the same dimension are locally symplectomorphic. Consequently, symplectic geometry has no local curvature invariant analogous to the Riemannian curvature tensor; many of its main questions are global.[2][8]
Submanifolds
There are several natural geometric notions of submanifold of a symplectic manifold . Let be a submanifold. It is[12][7]
symplectic iff is a symplectic form on ;
isotropic iff , equivalently, iff for any ;
coisotropic iff for any ;
Lagrangian iff it is both isotropic and coisotropic, i.e. and . By the nondegeneracy of , Lagrangian submanifolds are the maximal isotropic submanifolds and minimal coisotropic submanifolds.
Lagrangian submanifolds
Lagrangian submanifolds are the most important submanifolds. Weinstein proposed the "symplectic creed": Everything is a Lagrangian submanifold. By that, he means that everything in symplectic geometry is most naturally expressed in terms of Lagrangian submanifolds.[13]
A Lagrangian fibration of a symplectic manifold M is a fibration where all of the fibers are Lagrangian submanifolds.
Given a submanifold of codimension 1, the characteristic line distribution on it is the duals to its tangent spaces: . If there also exists a Liouville vector field in a neighborhood of it that is transverse to it. In this case, let , then is a contact manifold, and we say it is a contact type submanifold. In this case, the Reeb vector field is tangent to the characteristic line distribution.
An n-submanifold is locally specified by a smooth function . It is a Lagrangian submanifold if for all . If locally there is a canonical coordinate system , then the condition is equivalent to where is the Lagrange bracket in this coordinate system.
The graph of a closed 1-form on is a Lagrangian submanifold of . In particular, the graph of is Lagrangian. Conversely, if a Lagrangian submanifold projects diffeomorphically to , then it is the graph of a closed 1-form.[12] It is globally the graph of only when that closed 1-form is exact.
Let L be a Lagrangian submanifold of a symplectic manifold (K,ω) given by an immersioni: L ↪ K (i is called a Lagrangian immersion). Let π: K ↠ B give a Lagrangian fibration of K. The composite (π ∘ i): L ↪ K ↠ B is a Lagrangian mapping. The critical value set of π ∘ i is called a caustic.[14]
Two Lagrangian maps (π1 ∘ i1): L1 ↪ K1 ↠ B1 and (π2 ∘ i2): L2 ↪ K2 ↠ B2 are called Lagrangian equivalent if there exist diffeomorphismsσ, τ and ν such that both sides of the diagram given on the right commute, and τ preserves the symplectic form.[5] Symbolically:
A map between symplectic manifolds is a symplectomorphism when it preserves the symplectic structure, i.e. the pullback is the same . The most important symplectomorphisms are symplectic flows, i.e. ones generated by integrating a vector field on .
Given a vector field on , it generates a symplectic flow iff . Such vector fields are called symplectic. Any Hamiltonian vector field is symplectic, and conversely, any symplectic vector field is locally Hamiltonian.
A property that is preserved under all symplectomorphisms is a symplectic invariant. In the spirit of Erlangen program, symplectic geometry is the study of symplectic invariants.
Let be a basis for We define our symplectic form on this basis as follows:
In this case the symplectic form reduces to a simple bilinear form. If denotes the identity matrix then the matrix, , of this bilinear form is given by the block matrix:
That is,
It has a fibration by Lagrangian submanifolds with fixed value of , i.e. .
A Liouville form for this is and , the Liouville vector field isthe radial field. Another Liouville form is , with Liouville vector field .
Surfaces
Every oriented smooth surface with an area form is a symplectic manifold. In dimension two, the closedness condition is automatic for any 2-form.
Cotangent bundles
If is a smooth manifold, its cotangent bundle carries a canonical 1-form, also called the tautological or Liouville 1-form. The exterior derivative , up to sign convention, is the canonical symplectic form on , also called the Poincaré two-form.
The canonical 1-form is defined by the property that, for any , where is the bundle projection. In local coordinates on , the canonical 1-form is where are fiber coordinates on the cotangent bundle such that . In these coordinates, the canonical symplectic form is
The tautological 1-form has Liouville vector field , the fiberwise radial field. Its flow dilates covectors: .
The zero section of the cotangent bundle is Lagrangian.
A symplectic manifold endowed with a metric that is compatible with the symplectic form is an almost Kähler manifold in the sense that the tangent bundle has an almost complex structure, but this need not be integrable. A compatible almost-complex structure is an endomorphism of the tangent space such that , , and for all . For such a compatible almost complex structure, defines a Riemannian metric. When is integrable, the resulting symplectic manifold is Kähler.[15]
Coadjoint orbits
Coadjoint orbits of Lie groups carry natural symplectic forms. If is the coadjoint orbit through , then tangent vectors at have the form , and the symplectic form is given, up to sign convention, by
A symplectomorphism can be described as a Lagrangian submanifold. If is a symplectomorphism, then its graph is a Lagrangian submanifold of , where denotes equipped with the symplectic form .[17]
More generally, a Lagrangian correspondence from to is a Lagrangian submanifold of . Lagrangian correspondences are used in formulations of the symplectic category and in Floer homology.
Generalizations
Presymplectic manifolds generalize the symplectic manifolds by only requiring to be closed, but possibly degenerate. Any submanifold of a symplectic manifold inherits a presymplectic structure.
Dirac manifolds generalize Poisson manifolds and presymplectic manifolds by preserving even less structure. The definition is designed so that any submanifold of a Poisson manifold induces a Dirac manifold. They can be called "pre-Poisson" manifolds.
A multisymplectic manifold of degree k is a manifold equipped with a closed nondegenerate k-form.[18]
A polysymplectic manifold is a Legendre bundle provided with a polysymplectic tangent-valued -form; it is utilized in Hamiltonian field theory.[19]
Contact manifold– Branch of geometryPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets—an odd-dimensional counterpart of the symplectic manifold.
Covariant Hamiltonian field theory– Formalism in classical field theory based on Hamiltonian mechanicsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
12Cannas da Silva, Ana (2001). Lectures on Symplectic Geometry. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Vol.1764. Springer. secs. 1.1–1.4. ISBN978-3-540-42195-5.
12McDuff, Dusa; Salamon, Dietmar (2017). "3. Symplectic manifolds". Introduction to Symplectic Topology (3rded.). Oxford University Press. pp.94–151. ISBN978-0-19-879489-9.
12Cannas da Silva, Ana (2001). Lectures on Symplectic Geometry. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Vol.1764. Springer. sec. 8.1. ISBN978-3-540-42195-5.
↑Arnold, V. I. (1990). "1. Symplectic geometry". Singularities of Caustics and Wave Fronts. Mathematics and Its Applications. Vol.62. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-94-011-3330-2.
↑Cannas da Silva, Ana (2001). Lectures on Symplectic Geometry. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Vol.1764. Springer. secs. 12–17. ISBN978-3-540-42195-5.
↑Cannas da Silva, Ana (2001). Lectures on Symplectic Geometry. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Vol.1764. Springer. secs. 21–22. ISBN978-3-540-42195-5.
McDuff, Dusa; Salamon, D. (1998). Introduction to Symplectic Topology. Oxford Mathematical Monographs. ISBN0-19-850451-9.
Hofer, Helmut; Zehnder, Eduard (2011). Symplectic Invariants and Hamiltonian Dynamics. Modern Birkhäuser Classics. Basel: Springer Basel AG Springer e-books. ISBN978-3-0348-0104-1.
Dunin-Barkowski, Petr (2024). "Symplectic duality for topological recursion". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. arXiv:2206.14792. doi:10.1090/tran/9352.