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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Isometric embedding" redirects here. For related concepts for metric spaces, see isometry.
For embeddings of graphs in two-dimensional manifolds, see graph embedding.
For other uses, see Embedding (disambiguation).

In mathematics, an embedding (or imbedding[1]) is one instance of some mathematical

structure contained within another instance, such as a group that is a subgroup.
When some object  is said to be embedded in another object , the embedding is given
by some injective and structure-preserving map . The precise meaning of "structure-
preserving" depends on the kind of mathematical structure of which  and  are instances.
In the terminology of category theory, a structure-preserving map is called a morphism.
The fact that a map  is an embedding is often indicated by the use of a "hooked arrow"
(U+21AA ↪ RIGHTWARDS ARROW WITH HOOK);[2] thus:  (On the other hand, this notation is
sometimes reserved for inclusion maps.)
Given  and , several different embeddings of  in  may be possible. In many cases of
interest there is a standard (or "canonical") embedding, like those of the natural
numbers in the integers, the integers in the rational numbers, the rational numbers in
the real numbers, and the real numbers in the complex numbers. In such cases it is
common to identify the domain  with its image  contained in , so that .
Topology and geometry[edit]
General topology[edit]
In general topology, an embedding is a homeomorphism onto its image.[3] More
explicitly, an injective continuous map  between topological spaces  and  is
a topological embedding if  yields a homeomorphism between  and  (where  carries
the subspace topology inherited from ). Intuitively then, the embedding  lets us treat  as
a subspace of . Every embedding is injective and continuous. Every map that is
injective, continuous and either open or closed is an embedding; however there are also
embeddings which are neither open nor closed. The latter happens if the image  is
neither an open set nor a closed set in .
For a given space , the existence of an embedding  is a topological invariant of . This
allows two spaces to be distinguished if one is able to be embedded in a space while
the other is not.
Related definitions[edit]

If the domain of a function  is a topological space then the function is said to be locally

injective at a point if there exists some neighborhood  of this point such that the
restriction  is injective. It is called locally injective if it is locally injective around every
point of its domain. Similarly, a local (topological, resp. smooth) embedding is a function
for which every point in its domain has some neighborhood to which its restriction is a
(topological, resp. smooth) embedding.
Every injective function is locally injective but not conversely. Local
diffeomorphisms, local homeomorphisms, and smooth immersions are all locally
injective functions that are not necessarily injective. The inverse function theorem gives
a sufficient condition for a continuously differentiable function to be (among other things)
locally injective. Every fiber of a locally injective function  is necessarily a discrete
subspace of its domain 
Differential topology[edit]
In differential topology: Let  and  be smooth manifolds and  be a smooth map. Then  is
called an immersion if its derivative is everywhere injective. An embedding, or
a smooth embedding, is defined to be an immersion which is an embedding in the
topological sense mentioned above (i.e. homeomorphism onto its image).[4]
In other words, the domain of an embedding is diffeomorphic to its image, and in
particular the image of an embedding must be a submanifold. An immersion is precisely
a local embedding, i.e. for any point  there is a neighborhood  such that  is an
embedding.
When the domain manifold is compact, the notion of a smooth embedding is equivalent
to that of an injective immersion.
An important case is . The interest here is in how large  must be for an embedding, in
terms of the dimension  of . The Whitney embedding theorem[5] states that  is enough,
and is the best possible linear bound. For example, the real projective space  of
dimension , where  is a power of two, requires  for an embedding. However, this does
not apply to immersions; for instance,  can be immersed in  as is explicitly shown
by Boy's surface—which has self-intersections. The Roman surface fails to be an
immersion as it contains cross-caps.
An embedding is proper if it behaves well with respect to boundaries: one requires the
map  to be such that
 , and
  is transverse to  in any point of .
The first condition is equivalent to having  and . The second condition, roughly
speaking, says that  is not tangent to the boundary of .
Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian geometry[edit]
In Riemannian geometry and pseudo-Riemannian geometry: Let  and  be Riemannian
manifolds or more generally pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. An isometric
embedding is a smooth embedding  which preserves the (pseudo-)metric in the sense
that  is equal to the pullback of  by , i.e. . Explicitly, for any two tangent vectors  we have
Analogously, isometric immersion is an immersion between (pseudo)-Riemannian
manifolds which preserves the (pseudo)-Riemannian metrics.
Equivalently, in Riemannian geometry, an isometric embedding (immersion) is a
smooth embedding (immersion) which preserves length of curves (cf. Nash
embedding theorem).[6]

Algebra[edit]
In general, for an algebraic category , an embedding between two -algebraic
structures  and  is a -morphism  that is injective.
Field theory[edit]
In field theory, an embedding of a field  in a field  is a ring homomorphism .
The kernel of  is an ideal of  which cannot be the whole field , because of the
condition . Furthermore, it is a well-known property of fields that their only ideals are
the zero ideal and the whole field itself. Therefore, the kernel is , so any embedding
of fields is a monomorphism. Hence,  is isomorphic to the subfield  of . This justifies
the name embedding for an arbitrary homomorphism of fields.
Universal algebra and model theory[edit]
Further information: Substructure (mathematics) and Elementary equivalence

If  is a signature and  are -structures (also called -algebras in universal algebra or

models in model theory), then a map  is a -embedding iff all of the following hold:
  is injective,
 for every -ary function symbol  and  we have ,
 for every -ary relation symbol  and  we have  iff 
Here  is a model theoretical notation equivalent to . In model theory there is also a
stronger notion of elementary embedding.

Order theory and domain theory[edit]

In order theory, an embedding of partially ordered sets is a function  between
partially ordered sets  and  such that
Injectivity of  follows quickly from this definition. In domain theory, an additional
requirement is that
 is directed.

Metric spaces[edit]
A mapping  of metric spaces is called an embedding (with distortion ) if
for every  and some constant .
Normed spaces[edit]
An important special case is that of normed spaces; in this case it is
natural to consider linear embeddings.
One of the basic questions that can be asked about a finite-
dimensional normed space  is, what is the maximal dimension  such that
the Hilbert space  can be linearly embedded into  with constant
distortion?
The answer is given by Dvoretzky's theorem.

Category theory[edit]
In category theory, there is no satisfactory and generally accepted
definition of embeddings that is applicable in all categories. One would
expect that all isomorphisms and all compositions of embeddings are
embeddings, and that all embeddings are monomorphisms. Other typical
requirements are: any extremal monomorphism is an embedding and
embeddings are stable under pullbacks.
Ideally the class of all embedded subobjects of a given object, up to
isomorphism, should also be small, and thus an ordered set. In this case,
the category is said to be well powered with respect to the class of
embeddings. This allows defining new local structures in the category
(such as a closure operator).
In a concrete category, an embedding is a morphism  which is an
injective function from the underlying set of  to the underlying set of  and
is also an initial morphism in the following sense: If  is a function from
the underlying set of an object  to the underlying set of , and if its
composition with  is a morphism , then  itself is a morphism.
A factorization system for a category also gives rise to a notion of
embedding. If  is a factorization system, then the morphisms in  may be
regarded as the embeddings, especially when the category is well
powered with respect to . Concrete theories often have a factorization
system in which  consists of the embeddings in the previous sense. This
is the case of the majority of the examples given in this article.
As usual in category theory, there is a dual concept, known as quotient.
All the preceding properties can be dualized.
An embedding can also refer to an embedding functor.

See also[edit]
 Ambient space
 Closed immersion
 Cover
 Dimension reduction
 Flat (geometry)
 Immersion
 Johnson–Lindenstrauss lemma
 Submanifold
 Subspace
 Universal space

Notes[edit]
1. ^ Spivak 1999, p. 49 suggests that "the English" (i.e. the British) use "embedding"
instead of "imbedding".
2. ^ "Arrows – Unicode"  (PDF). Retrieved 2017-02-07.
3. ^ Hocking & Young 1988, p. 73. Sharpe 1997, p. 16.
4. ^ Bishop & Crittenden 1964, p. 21. Bishop & Goldberg 1968, p. 40. Crampin &
Pirani 1994, p. 243. do Carmo 1994, p. 11. Flanders 1989, p. 53. Gallot, Hulin &
Lafontaine 2004, p. 12. Kobayashi & Nomizu 1963, p. 9. Kosinski 2007, p. 27. Lang
1999, p. 27. Lee 1997, p. 15. Spivak 1999, p. 49. Warner 1983, p. 22.
5. ^ Whitney H., Differentiable manifolds, Ann. of Math. (2), 37 (1936), pp. 645–680
6. ^ Nash J., The embedding problem for Riemannian manifolds, Ann. of Math.
(2), 63 (1956), 20–63.

References[edit]
 Bishop, Richard Lawrence; Crittenden, Richard J. (1964). Geometry of
manifolds. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-8218-2923-3.
  Bishop, Richard Lawrence; Goldberg, Samuel Irving (1968). Tensor
Analysis on Manifolds (First Dover 1980 ed.). The Macmillan
Company. ISBN 0-486-64039-6.
 Crampin, Michael; Pirani, Felix Arnold Edward (1994). Applicable
differential geometry. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 978-0-521-23190-9.
 do Carmo, Manfredo Perdigao (1994). Riemannian Geometry. ISBN 978-0-
8176-3490-2.
 Flanders, Harley (1989). Differential forms with applications to the physical
sciences. Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-66169-8.
 Gallot, Sylvestre; Hulin, Dominique; Lafontaine, Jacques
(2004). Riemannian Geometry (3rd ed.). Berlin, New York: Springer-
Verlag. ISBN 978-3-540-20493-0.
 Hocking, John Gilbert; Young, Gail Sellers (1988) [1961]. Topology.
Dover. ISBN 0-486-65676-4.
 Kosinski, Antoni Albert (2007) [1993]. Differential manifolds. Mineola, New
York: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-46244-8.
 Lang, Serge (1999). Fundamentals of Differential Geometry. Graduate
Texts in Mathematics. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-98593-0.
 Kobayashi, Shoshichi; Nomizu, Katsumi (1963). Foundations of Differential
Geometry, Volume 1. New York: Wiley-Interscience.
 Lee, John Marshall (1997). Riemannian manifolds. Springer
Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-98322-6.
 Sharpe, R.W. (1997). Differential Geometry: Cartan's Generalization of
Klein's Erlangen Program. Springer-Verlag, New York. ISBN 0-387-94732-
9..
 Spivak, Michael (1999) [1970]. A Comprehensive introduction to differential
geometry (Volume 1). Publish or Perish. ISBN 0-914098-70-5.
 Warner, Frank Wilson (1983). Foundations of Differentiable Manifolds and
Lie Groups. Springer-Verlag, New York. ISBN 0-387-90894-3..

External links[edit]
 Adámek, Jiří; Horst Herrlich; George Strecker (2006). Abstract and
Concrete Categories (The Joy of Cats).
 Embedding of manifolds on the Manifold Atlas

This article includes a list of related items that share the same name (or similar
names).
If an  internal link  incorrectly led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the
intended article.

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