Introduction to Smooth Manifolds

This book is an introductory graduate-level textbook on the theory of smooth manifolds. Its goal is to familiarize students with the tools they will need in order to use manifolds in mathematical or scientific research-smooth structures, tangent vectors and covectors, vector bundles, immersed and embedded submanifolds, tensors, differential forms, de Rham cohomology, vector fields, flows, foliations, Lie derivatives, Lie groups, Lie algebras, and more. The approach is as concrete as possible, with pictures and intuitive discussions of how one should think geometrically about the abstract concepts, while making full use of the powerful tools that modern mathematics has to offer. Along the way, the book introduces students to some of the most important exemples of geometric structures that manifolds can carry, such as Riemannian metrics, symplectic structures, and foliations. The book is aimed at students who already have a solid acquaintance with general topology, the fundamental group, and covering spaces, as well as basic undergraduate linear algebra and real analysis.