Parallelization (mathematics)

In mathematics, a parallelization[1] of a manifold

of dimension n is a set of n global smooth linearly independent vector fields.

Given a manifold

of dimension n, a parallelization of

of n smooth vector fields defined on all of

denotes the fiber over

of the tangent vector bundle

A manifold is called parallelizable whenever it admits a parallelization.

A manifold

is parallelizable iff there is a diffeomorphism

ϕ :

ϕ

—is a linear map

ϕ

is parallelizable if and only if

is a trivial bundle.

is an open subset of

, i.e., an open submanifold of

is clearly parallelizable.