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examples of symplectic manifolds
Examples of symplectic manifolds: The most basic example of a symplectic manifold is . If we choose coordinate functions , then
is a symplectic form, and one can easily check that it is closed.
Any orientable -manifold is symplectic. Any volume form is a symplectic form.
If is any manifold, then the cotangent bundle is symplectic. If are coordinates on a coordinate patch on , and are the functions
at any point , then
(Equivalently, using the notation from the entry Poincare 1-form, we can define .)
One can check that this behaves well under coordinate transformations, and thus defines a form on the whole manifold. One can easily check that this is closed and non-degenerate.
All orbits in the coadjoint action of a Lie group on the dual of it Lie algebra are symplectic. In particular, this includes complex Grassmannians and complex projective spaces.
Examples of non-symplectic manifolds: Obviously, all odd-dimensional manifolds are non-symplectic.
More subtlely, if is compact, dimensional and is a closed 2-form, consider the form . If this form is exact, then must be 0 somewhere, and so is somewhere degenerate. Since the wedge of a closed and an exact form is exact, no power of can be exact. In particular, for all , for any compact symplectic manifold.
Thus, for example, for is not symplectic. Also, this means that any symplectic manifold must be orientable.
Finally, it is not generally the case that connected sums of compact symplectic manifolds are again symplectic: Every symplectic manifold admits an almost complex structure (a symplectic form and a Riemannian metric on a manifold are sufficient to define an almost complex structure which is compatible with the symplectic form in a nice way). In the case of a connected sum of two symplectic manifolds, there does not necessarily exist such an almost complex structure, and hence connected sums cannot be (generically) symplectic.
Mathematics Subject Classification
53D05 Symplectic manifolds, general- Forums
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