- Double (manifold)
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For the equipment used to connect two air cylinders in SCUBA diving, see Manifold (scuba).
In the subject of manifold theory in mathematics, if M is a manifold with boundary, its double is obtained by gluing two copies of M together along their common boundary. Precisely, the double is where (x,0)∼(x,1) for all .
Although the concept makes sense for any manifold, and even for some non-manifold sets such as the Alexander horned sphere, the notion of double tends to be used primarily in the context that is non-empty and M is compact.
Doubles bound
Given a manifold M, the double of M is the boundary of . This gives doubles a special role in cobordism.
Examples
The n-sphere is the double of the n-ball. In this context, the two balls would be the upper and lower hemi-sphere respectively. More generally, if M is closed, the double of is . Even more generally, the double of a disc bundle over a manifold is a sphere bundle over the same manifold. More concretely, the double of the Möbius strip is the Klein bottle.
If M is a closed, oriented manifold and if M' is obtained from M by removing an open ball, then the connected sum is the double of M'.
The double of a Mazur manifold is a homotopy 4-sphere.
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