When is there a deRham duality relation between the fundamental class and a top form.? - MathOverflow most recent 30 from http://mathoverflow.net 2013-05-24T18:10:28Z http://mathoverflow.net/feeds/question/22905 http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdf http://mathoverflow.net/questions/22905/when-is-there-a-derham-duality-relation-between-the-fundamental-class-and-a-top-f When is there a deRham duality relation between the fundamental class and a top form.? Herb 2010-04-28T23:04:09Z 2010-06-24T00:01:52Z <p>Hi, everyone: I am reading a small expository paper on properties of CP<sup>2</sup>, in which the intersection form is defined as an integral of the wedge of two forms $w_1$, $w_2$, and these forms $w_1$, $w_2$ (no problem with compact support, since CP<sup>2</sup> is compact) seem to have been obtained from the fundamental class [z] of H<sub>2</sub>(CP<sup>2</sup>)-- a copy of CP<sup>1</sup> (embedded in CP<sup>2</sup>), after which we integrate $w:=w1\wedge w2$ to get the intersection number.</p> <p>I am curious on whether I am reading the above correctly, i.e., that the volume form in CP<sup>2</sup> is obtained by using the fund. class [z] in H<sub>2</sub>. If not, would someone explain; if this is correct, if we are we using some form of deRham's theorem to turn a purely topological object like [z] into an object like $w$, for which we must have a differentiable structure defined)?</p> <p>Thanks in Advance.</p> http://mathoverflow.net/questions/22905/when-is-there-a-derham-duality-relation-between-the-fundamental-class-and-a-top-f/22922#22922 Answer by Somnath Basu for When is there a deRham duality relation between the fundamental class and a top form.? Somnath Basu 2010-04-29T01:34:28Z 2010-06-24T00:01:52Z <p>Consider a suitably small tubular neighbourhood $\mathcal{N}$ of $\mathbb{CP}^1$, thought of as sitting inside $\mathbb{CP}^2$. Then $\mathcal{N}$ locally looks like $\mathbb{CP}^1\times D_2$. The volume form $\omega$ of $\mathbb{CP}^1$ is not necessarily a $2$-form in $\mathbb{CP}^2$. However, one can imagine changing it so that we have new $2$-form $\widetilde{\omega}$ in $\mathbb{CP}^2$, supported in $\mathcal{N}$, such that $\widetilde{\omega}$ restrcited to ${p}\times D_2$ (for $p\in\mathbb{CP}^1$) looks like a smooth bump function which integrates to $1$. This can be taken to be $w_1$ in your case. Now assume you take your copy of $\mathbb{CP}^1$ inside $\mathbb{CP}^2$ and perturb it a bit (i.e., make it transversal to itself) to get another copy. Apply what we said before and get $w_2$ supported in a suitable tubular neighbourhood of this perturbed copy. Now integrating $w_1\wedge w_2$ over $\mathbb{CP}^2$ gives you an integration over balls around points where self-intersections occur. The normalization were so chosen that it counts the intersection number of $\mathbb{CP}^1$ with itself. </p>