Connection (vector Bundle)

Connection (vector Bundle)

In mathematics, a connection on a fiber bundle is a device that defines a notion of parallel transport on the bundle; that is, a way to "connect" or identify fibers over nearby points. If the fiber bundle is a vector bundle, then the notion of parallel transport is required to be linear. Such a connection is equivalently specified by a covariant derivative, which is an operator that can differentiate sections of that bundle along tangent directions in the base manifold. Connections in this sense generalize, to arbitrary vector bundles, the concept of a linear connection on the tangent bundle of a smooth manifold, and are sometimes known as linear connections. Nonlinear connections are connections that are not necessarily linear in this sense.

Connections on vector bundles are also sometimes called Koszul connections after Jean-Louis Koszul, who gave an algebraic framework for describing them (Koszul 1950).