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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1971 Apr;68(4):791–794. doi: 10.1073/pnas.68.4.791

Some Cohomology Classes in Principal Fiber Bundles and Their Application to Riemannian Geometry

Shiing-Shen Chern 1,2, James Simons 1,2
PMCID: PMC389044  PMID: 16591916

Abstract

We define some new global invariants of a fiber bundle with a connection. They are cohomology classes in the principal fiber bundle that are defined when certain characteristic curvature forms vanish. In the case of the principal tangent bundle of a riemannian manifold, they are invariant under a conformal transformation of the metric. They give necessary conditions for conformal immersion of a riemannian manifold in euclidean space.

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