Density On A Manifold - Integration

Integration

Densities play a significant role in the theory of integration on manifolds. Indeed, the definition of a density is motivated by how a measure dx changes under a change of coordinates (Folland 1999, Section 11.4, pp. 361-362).

Given a 1-density ƒ supported in a coordinate chart U_α, the integral is defined by

where the latter integral is with respect to the Lebesgue measure on Rn. The transformation law for 1-densities together with the Jacobian change of variables ensures compatibility on the overlaps of different coordinate charts, and so the integral of a general compactly supported 1-density can be defined by a partition of unity argument. Thus 1-densities are a generalization of the notion of a volume form that does not necessarily require the manifold to be oriented or even orientable. One can more generally develop a general theory of Radon measures as distributional sections of using the Riesz representation theorem.

The set of 1/p-densities such that is a normed linear space whose completion is called the intrinsic Lp space of M.