Student Name: Guifré Sánchez Serra

Riemann surfaces
Assignment 11

1
Let X be a smooth, compact, path-connected, R oriented surface and ω ∈ Ω (X) be a closed
1-form. Suppose that for any closed cycle γ, γ ω = 0. Construct a smooth function f on X
such that ω = df .

Let p0 be an arbitrary point in X. Define f as follows:

f :X→R
Z p
(1)
p 7→ ω
p0

where the integral is taken along a path connecting p0 and p.

Lemma 1. f is a well defined smooth function on X.

R that f is well defined. Let p ∈ X and consider two paths γ1 , γ2 in X, connecting p0

Proof. We will first see
and p. Denote fi := γi ω, i = 1, 2. Note that γ1 −γ2 defines a closed cycle in X. Therefore, by assumption
R R R
γ1 −γ2 ω = 0. By linearity of integration of differential forms on chains, we also have γ1 ω − γ2 ω = 0,
which implies f1 = f2 , as desired.
Let now p ∈ X, and let (U, φ) be a local chart around p such that φ(p) = (0, 0). Denote (x, y) the
corresponding local coordinates. Let q ∈ U and let γ be a path connecting p and q, inside U parametrized
by (x(t), y(t)), for t ∈ [0, 1], i.e. γ(t) = φ−1 (x(t), y(t)). Then:
Z q Z p Z q Z
f (q) = ω= ω+ ω = f (p) + ω (2)
p0 p0 p γ

Then, by definition, we have:

Z 1 Z 1
∂x(t) ∂y(t)
f (x(t), y(t)) = f (0, 0) + ω1 (x(t), y(t)) dt + ω2 (x(t), y(t)) dt (3)
0 ∂t 0 ∂t

where by abuse of notation we treat f (x, y) andf (φ−1 (x, y)) interchangeably and where ω1 , ω2 are the 2
C ∞ (X) functions that define ω = ω1 dx + ω2 dy. Given the smoothness of ω1 , ω2 , it is immediately1 clear
that f is also C ∞ (X).

Lemma 2. df = ω
Proof. Let p ∈ X and let (U, φ), q, γ and (x, y) be defined as in the previous Lemma. In local coordinates,
we have, from the definition of df , that:
∂f ∂f
df = dx + dy (4)
∂x ∂y
1
The expression in Equation 3 shows that f can be written locally as the integral of smooth functions. Since integration
can only provide more regularity to the resulting function (which can be seen as a consequence of the fundamental theorem of
calculus), we must have f smooth. In any case, this becomes even more clear with the computation of the partial derivatives
∂x f, ∂y f in the next page, which are precisely the components of ω, ω1 (x, y) and ω2 (x, y) respectively; since these are smooth,
so are the partial derivatives of f and therefore f is smooth.

1
Let us now compute ∂f /∂x. Let γx be the curve in X defined by γx (t) = φ−1 (t, 0), with t ∈ [0, δ], with δ
small enough s.t. γx ⊂ U . The partial derivative of f w.r.t to x is then:

∂f f (γx (h)) − f (p) f (h, 0) − f (0, 0)

(p) = lim = lim (5)
∂x h→0 h h→0 h
Taking into account that x(t) = t, y(t) = 0 for γx , and using Equation 3 we see that:
Z h
f (h, 0) − f (0, 0) = ω1 (t, 0)dt (6)
0

We then have:
Rh
∂f 0 ω1 (t, 0)dt (7)
(p) = lim = ω1 (0, 0) = ω1 (p)
∂x h→0 h
by the fundamental theoreom of calculus (since ω1 is smooth). The same reasoning shows that ∂f (p)/∂y =
ω2 (p). Since p was an arbitrary point, we obtain, from Equation 4:

df = ω1 dx + ω2 dy (8)

but this is exactly the expression of ω in local coordinates, therefore df = ω, and we are done.