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David Zureick-Brown
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Are submersions of differentiable manifolds flat morphisms?

Let M,N be real smooth manifolds and p:M-->N a smooth map. Then smooth functions on M form a module over the ring of smooth functions on N (via pullback). Is it know whether this module is flat when p is a submersion or fiber bundle?

Recall that flatness is equivalent to the following: whenever h1 ... hk are smooth functions on N and g1 ... gk are smooth functions on M such that:

h1g1 + ... + hkgk = 0 (as function on M)

then there are functions G1 ... Gr on M and ai,j on N such that:

gi= Σj ai,jGj for all i

and Σi hi ai,j= 0 for all j.

Michael Bächtold
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