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Cotangent Vector


A cotangent vector at a point p of a smooth manifold M is a linear functional on the tangent space T_pM. Thus the cotangent space at p is the dual vector space

 T_p^*M=Hom(T_pM,R).

The union of the cotangent spaces as p varies is the cotangent bundle T^*M. A Riemannian metric identifies tangent vectors and cotangent vectors by the musical isomorphisms.


See also

Cotangent Bundle, Cotangent Space, Covector, Dual Vector Space, Musical Isomorphism, Tangent Space

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References

Jost, J. Riemannian Geometry and Geometric Analysis, 7th ed. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61860-9.

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Cotangent Vector." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/CotangentVector.html

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