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Here is the coordinate charts of RP^n given by the book of Brocker & Janich:

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But I do not imagine how these coordinate charts look like,could someone describe them to me?

EDIT:

How can I describe the chart transformation for this atlas? and how to show that it is differentiable?

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The open sets in a quotient topology are precisely those for whom the inverse image under the quotient map is open.

That is if $(X,\tau)$ be my topological space then under the equivalence relation $\sim$ . And if $q:X\to X/\sim$ be the quotient map such that $q(x)=[x]$. The quotient space $(X/\sim,\tau')$ has the topology $\tau'$ such that

$\tau'=\{U:q^{-1}(U)\in \tau\}$. That is how the quotient topology is constructed such that the quotient map is continuous.

The real projective space is usually defined as follows:-

$\mathbb{RP}^{n}=\frac{\mathbb{R}^{n+1}\setminus\{0\}}{\sim}$. The equivalence relation is $x\sim y\iff x=\lambda y$ for some $\lambda\in\mathbb{R}\setminus\{0\}$.

That is every vector along the vector $x$ is equivalent to it. The stretching or compressing the vector $x$ gives you the sane equivalence class.

A bit of notation now . When I write parantheses I mean the coordinates in the euclidean space. When I write $[.]$ , I mean the elements in the quotient space.

Now this structure is homeomorphic to $S^{n}/\sim'$ Where this $\sim'$ is given by identifying antipodal points as being in the same equivalence class. That is basically what is meant by $x\sim' -x$. (Think about it , if you view the sphere inside $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ then two points are equivalent iff $\lambda=1$ or $\lambda=-1$. That is the diamtetrically opposite points are same. The homeomorphism being induced by the universal property.(This should remind you of the first isomorphism theorem in Group Theory). Namely you map $x\in\mathbb{R^{n+1}}\setminus\{0\}$ to $[\frac{x}{|x|}]\in S^{n}/\sim'$ . This map then induces the homeomorphism from $\mathbb{RP}^{n}\to S^{n}/\sim'$.

Now consider the the open set $\bar{U_{i}}\subset\mathbb{R^{n+1}}\setminus\{0\}$ such that $\bar{U_{i}}=\{(x_{1},x_{2},...x_{n+1})\in\mathbb{R^{n+1}}\setminus\{0\}\,: x_{i}\neq 0\}$.

Then you look at the image of this set $q(\bar{U_{i}})=U_{i}$. You need to use surjectivity of quotient map and the properties of quotient topology to see that $U_{i}$ is indeed open in $\mathbb{RP}^{n}$ under the quotient topology.

Then you cover $\mathbb{RP}^{n}$ by these $n+1$ open sets $U_{i}$ .

Then you define $\bar{\phi_{i}}:\bar{U_{i}}\to\mathbb{R}^{n}$ by

$\displaystyle\bar{\phi_{i}}(x_{1},x_{2},..,x_{i},...x_{n},x_{n+1})=(\frac{x_{1}}{x_{i}},\frac{x_{2}}{x_{i}},...\hat{x_{i}},..\frac{x_{n+1}}{x_{i}})$ . Where the $\hat{x_{i}}$ means that the i-th coordinate is missing. It's just a way of writing. If it confuses you , think of it as $\displaystyle(\frac{x_{1}}{x_{i}},\frac{x_{2}}{x_{i}},...\frac{x_{i-1}}{x_{i}},\frac{x_{i+1}}{x_{i}},..\frac{x_{n+1}}{x_{i}})$.

Then again using the universal property we get that the quotient map induces the map $\phi_{i}:U_{i}\to\mathbb{R}^{n}$ given by $\displaystyle\phi_{i}([x_{1},x_{2},...x_{n+1}])=(\frac{x_{1}}{x_{i}},...\hat{x_{i}},...\frac{x_{n+1}}{x_{i}})$

This map is clearly continuous(because $\frac{1}{x}$ is continuous). And it is bijective because we can actually compute the inverse.

$\phi_{i}^{-1}(x_{1},x_{2},...x_{n})=[x_{1},x_{2},...x_{i-1},1,x_{i},x_{i+1},..x_{n}]$.

You can easily verify the well definedness of these maps and the bijectivity should not be hard to see either. The point is that these $\phi_{i}$'s are homeomorphisms. (Actually you only need to verify bijectivity . The continuity part follows from the construction of quotient topology itself and thus by the universal property.)

Then I have charts $(U_{i},\phi_{i})$ of my real projective space. Now I need only verify the smooth compatibility.

Indeed if $\phi_{i},\phi_{j}$ are different charts . We get,

$$\displaystyle\phi_{j}\circ\phi_{i}^{-1}(x_{1},x_{2},...x_{n})=\phi_{j}[x_{1},x_{2},...x_{i-1},1,x_{i+1},...x_{n}]=\\(\frac{x_{1}}{x_{j}},...\frac{x_{j-1}}{x_{j}},\frac{x_{j+1}}{x_{j}},...\frac{x_{i-1}}{x_{j}},\frac{1}{x_{j}},\frac{x_{i}}{x_{j}},\frac{x_{i+1}}{x_{j}}...\frac{x_{n}}{x_{j}})$$

And this is a smooth map as again $\frac{1}{x}$ is a smooth map in any deleted neighbourhood of the origin.

Thus these $\{(U_{i},\phi_{i})\}_{i=1}^{n}$ gives me a smooth structure on $\mathbb{RP}^{n}$ and thus they give you a maximal smooth atlas containing them.

You can then actually prove that the map $x\mapsto [\frac{x}{|x|}]$ induces a diffeomorphism from $\mathbb{RP}^{n}\to\mathbb{\frac{S^{n}}{x\sim -x}}$

I hope this answers your question as to how to show that it is a differentiable manifold. (I have excluded the proofs for Hausdorffness and Second Countability). You can look it up .

As to how these charts look like, you should really see the picture in your book. Then try to do this for the unit circle in $\mathbb{R}^{2}$. After that I think it will be clearer to you. As always, it is hard to actually vizualize quotiented things . Sometimes , the algebraic intuition is more helpful than the geometric intuition.

PS:- You should read a little about the quotient topology and the universal property to make life easier. Otherwise actually trying to justify continuity and stuff become unecessarily laborious.

  • I can not see how did you find the inverse of $\phi_i$ please? does not $\phi_i$ divide by $\phi_i$ and then remove the 1 that results? –  Feb 22 '22 at 03:57
  • Do I have to do this "You can then actually prove that the map $x\mapsto [\frac{x}{|x|}]$ induces a diffeomorphism from $\mathbb{RP}^{n}\to\mathbb{\frac{S^{n}}{x\sim -x}}$" to prove that the chart transformations are differentiable? –  Feb 22 '22 at 04:14
  • Do you think we need to show that it is differentiable manifold in this question? I think we wanted to show only that the chart transformations are smooth .... am I correct? –  Feb 22 '22 at 05:07
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    @Brain For the first comment:- I am sorry, I made a mistake it should be $\phi_{i}^{-1}(x_{1},...x_{n})=[x_1,x_2,....x_{i-1},1,x_i,,x_i+1...x_n]$ . I'll edit it in . For the 2nd comment :- To prove or not to prove that is upto you. I only said that because in your book the author defined projective spaces as $S^{n}/\sim$ . But becasue they are diffeomorphic, it does not matter what definition you use. For the 3rd comment:- Again that is upto you. The details left are:-1 Hausdorffness and 2nd countability. Both of which can be proven. You can search for proofs online. – Mr. Gandalf Sauron Feb 22 '22 at 07:21
  • @Brain Intuitively it is clear why such a choice is important. You have $n$ coordinates and you are inserting into a space with $n+1$ coordinates. So you need to make that extra coordinate as $1$ so that dividing by it makes no difference. Now you can actually verify that $\phi_{i}\circ\phi_{i}^{-1}=\phi_{i}^{-1}\circ\phi_{i}=\text{Id}$ – Mr. Gandalf Sauron Feb 22 '22 at 07:26
  • Does the inverse function add $1$ in the $i^{th}$ coordinate? and keeps the $i^{th}$ or just add one? –  Feb 22 '22 at 09:53
  • it does not "add" it. It inserts a $1$ in the ith position so that the image "looks like" it is in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$. (of course it is actually in the quotient space). Think of it as two steps like this:- We rearrange the n coordinates in this way $(x_{1},x_{2},....x_{i-1},\text{ith-position is blank},x_{i},...x_{n})$. And then just fill the ith positon with $1$. – Mr. Gandalf Sauron Feb 22 '22 at 10:11
  • you know what .... your coordinates start from 1 but in the book it starts from zero. –  Feb 22 '22 at 10:14
  • Yeah. Some authors do that. They keep the $0th$ position for this insertion business. By some I mean old books like spivak . Newer books like John lee etc starts from $1$. It does not make a difference. Some prefer to start from $0$. Remember arrays in C-programming ? . lol – Mr. Gandalf Sauron Feb 22 '22 at 10:16
  • I think your $\bar{U}_i$ should contain $x_0$ otherwise it will not be an element of $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ .... am I correct? –  Feb 22 '22 at 14:21
  • Also, why you are writing $\bar{U}_i$ even though you are not writing it in an equivalence class notation? –  Feb 22 '22 at 14:27
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    Yes you are right. I should have ended with $x_{n+1}$. Secondly I used $\bar{U_{i}}$ to denote subsets of $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ and $U_{i}$ to denote subsets of quotient space. Since we are interested in the quotient space more....I used bar for sets of the mother space and non-bar set for the quotient space which is our object of study. – Mr. Gandalf Sauron Feb 22 '22 at 14:41
  • I think you meant to say in this line "Then you cover $\mathbb{RP}^{n}$ by these $n$ open sets $U_{i}$ ." by these $n+1$ open sets, am I correct? –  Feb 22 '22 at 16:30