Integrals over Manifolds (part 1)
We’ve defined how to integrate forms over chains made up of singular cubes, but we still haven’t really defined integration on manifolds. We’ve sort of waved our hands at the idea that integrating over a cube is the same as integrating over its image, but this needs firming up. In particular, we will restrict to oriented manifolds.
To this end, we start by supposing that an -form
is supported in the image of an orientation-preserving singular
-cube
. Then we will define
Indeed, here the image of is some embedded submanifold of
that even agrees with its orientation. And since
is zero outside of this submanifold it makes sense to say that the integral over the submanifold — over the singular cube
— is the same as the integral over the whole manifold.
What if we have two orientation-preserving singular cubes and
that both contain the support of
? It only makes sense that they should give the same integral. And, indeed, we find that
where we use to reparameterize our integral. Of course, this function may not be defined on all of
, but it’s defined on
, where
is supported, and that’s enough.

[...] so we can now integrate forms as long as they’re supported within the image of an orientation-preserving [...]
Pingback by Integrals over Manifolds (part 2) « The Unapologetic Mathematician | September 7, 2011 |
[...] then is an orientation-preserving singular cube containing the support of , and so we can use it to calculate integrals over . Working in from each side of our proposed equality we [...]
Pingback by Switching Orientations « The Unapologetic Mathematician | September 8, 2011 |
[...] Remembering that diffeomorphism is meant to be our idea of what it means for two smooth manifolds to be “equivalent”, this means that is either equivalent to or to . And I say that this equivalence comes out in integrals. [...]
Pingback by Integrals and Diffeomorphisms « The Unapologetic Mathematician | September 12, 2011 |
[...] now define some particular kinds of integrals as special cases of our theory of integrals over manifolds. And the first such special case is that of a line [...]
Pingback by Line Integrals « The Unapologetic Mathematician | October 21, 2011 |