Is it true that if a manifold is simply connected then its tangent bundle is simply connected?
Asked
Active
Viewed 54 times
2 Answers
4
The tangent bundle is homotopy equivalent to the manifold and therefore has the same fundamental group as the manifold. In particular, they are simply connected simultaneously.
Mikhail Katz
- 42,112
- 3
- 66
- 131
1
Yes. This follows from a portion of the long exact sequence of a fibration: the tangent bundle $TM$ of a $d$-dimensional manifold $M$ is a fibration with fiber $\mathbb{R}^d$ and so there is an exact sequence $$\pi_1(\mathbb{R}^d) \to \pi_1(TM) \to \pi_1(M) $$
Lee Mosher
- 120,280