G-fibration
fibre bundle with a structure group
A generalization of the concept of the direct product of two topological spaces.
Let be a topological group and
an effective right
-space, i.e. a topological space with a given right action of
such that
for some
,
, implies
. Let
be the subset of those pairs
for which
for some
, let
be the orbit space, and let
be the mapping sending each point to its orbit. If the mapping
is continuous, then the tuple
is called a principal fibre bundle with structure group
.
Let be a left
-space. The topological space
admits a right action of
by
,
. The composition
induces a mapping:
(where
is the orbit space of
under the action of
). The quadruple
is called a fibre bundle with structure group associated with the principal fibre bundle
, and the quadruple
is a fibre bundle with fibre
, base
and structure group
. Thus, a principal fibre bundle with a given structure group is a part of the structure of any fibre bundle with (that) structure group, and it uniquely determines the fibre bundle for any left
-space
.
If ,
are two principal fibre bundles with structure group
, then a morphism
is a mapping of
-spaces
.
induces a mapping
. A principal fibre bundle with structure group is called trivial is it is isomorphic to a fibre bundle of the following type:
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Let be a principal fibre bundle and let
be a continuous mapping of an arbitrary topological space
into
. Let
be the subset of pairs
for which
. The projection
induces a mapping
. The space
has the natural structure of a right
-space, and the triple
is a principal fibre bundle; it is induced by
and is called an induced fibre bundle. If
is the inclusion mapping of a subspace, then
is called the restriction of
over the subspace
.
A principal fibre bundle with structure group is called locally trivial if its restriction to some neighbourhood of any point of the base is trivial. For a wide class of cases, the requirement of local triviality is unnecessary (e.g. if
is a compact Lie group and
a smooth
-manifold). Hence, the term "fibre bundle" with structure group is often used in the sense of a locally trivial fibre bundle (or fibration).
Let ,
be a pair of fibre bundles with the same structure group and the same
-space as fibre. Given a morphism
of principal fibre bundles, the mapping
induces a continuous mapping
, and the pair
is called a morphism of fibre bundles with structure group,
.
A locally trivial fibre bundle admits the following characterization, which gives rise to another (also generally accepted) definition of a fibre bundle with structure group. Let
be an open covering of the base
such that the restriction of
to
is trivial for all
. The choice of trivializations and their equality on the intersections
leads to continuous functions (called transfer functions)
. On the intersection of three neighbourhoods
one has
, while the choice of other trivializations over every neighbourhood leads to new functions
. In this way, the functions
form a one-dimensional Aleksandrov–Čech cocycle with coefficients in the sheaf of germs of
-valued functions (the coefficients are non-Abelian), and a locally trivial fibre bundle determines this cocycle up to a coboundary.
References
[1] | D. Husemoller, "Fibre bundles" , McGraw-Hill (1966) |
[2] | N.E. Steenrod, "The topology of fibre bundles" , Princeton Univ. Press (1951) |
G-fibration. Encyclopedia of Mathematics. URL: http://encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php?title=G-fibration&oldid=16144