Contents

# Contents

## Idea

Two differentiable functions $f \colon X \to Z$ and $g \colon Y \to Z$ between differentiable manifolds are called transversal if, roughly, the images of $X$ and $Y$ in $Z$ do not “touch tangentially”.

If $f$ or $g$ are inclusions of (possibly immersed) submanifolds one speaks of these submanifolds being transversal to each other.

## Definition

Two differentiable functions $f \colon X \to Z$ and $g \colon Y \to Z$ between differentiable manifold (for instance smooth functions between smooth manifolds) are transversal if for all point $x \in X$ and $y \in Y$ with $f(x) = z = g(y)$ the differentials of $f$ and $g$ in these points span the entire tangent space at $z$ in the sense that

$im(d f) + im(d g) \simeq T_z Z \,.$

(Notice that this is not required to be a direct sum.)

## Properties

### Pullbacks along transversal maps

Various constructions involving pullbacks of differentiable manifolds work as expected only for pullbacks involving transversal maps.

For example, two differentiable functions with a common codomain are transversal only if their pullback exists and is preserved by the tangent bundle functor; that is, $T(X \times_Z Y) = T X \times_{T Z} T Y$. (However, the pullback may exist and be preserved without transversality; for example if $X$ and $Y$ are both abstract points, $Z$ is not a point, and the maps $X, Y \to Z$ are equal as concrete points of $Z$.)

This is to be regarded as the dual of the possibly more familiar statement that various constructions involving quotients only work as expected for free actions.

Both of these “problems” are solved by passing from the ordinary 1-category Diff of manifolds to a suitable higher category of generalized smooth spaces.

More precisely:

## References

• Antoni Kosinski, chapter IV.1 of Differential manifolds, Academic Press 1993 (pdf)

• T. Bröcker, K. Jänich, C. B. Thomas, M. J. Thomas, Introduction to differentiable topology, 1982 (translated from German 1973 edition; ∃ also 1990 German 2nd edition)

• Morris W. Hirsch, Differential topology, Springer GTM 33, gBooks

Last revised on January 22, 2021 at 22:44:20. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.