The Hodge-de Rham decomposition theorem and an application to a partial differential equation (Q663083)

Let \(E^p(M)\) be the space of smooth \(p\)-forms on a compact, orientable Riemannian manifold \(M\) with an inner product defined as \((\alpha,\beta)=\int_M\alpha\wedge*\beta\), where \(*\) is the Hodge operator. If \(d\) and \(\delta\) are adjoint operators, \(\alpha\), and \(\beta\) are forms of degree \(p\) and \(p+1\), respectively, then \((d\alpha,\beta)=(\alpha,\delta\beta)\). The operator \(\Delta=d\delta+\delta d\) is called the Laplace-Beltrami operator. There are three subspaces of \(E^p(M)\), the subspace \(\Lambda^p_d\) of exact form, the subspace \(\Lambda^p_\delta\) of co-exact forms, and the subspace \(H^p\) of harmonic forms. In this paper, the author presents two versions of the Hodge-de Rham Theorem: (1) A regular differential form of degree \(p\) may be uniquely decomposed into a sum of the form \(\alpha=a_d+a_\delta+a_H\), where \(a_d\in\Lambda^p_d\), \(a_\delta\in\Lambda^p_\delta\), and \(a_H\in H^p\), (2) For each integer \(p\) with \(0\leq p\leq n\), \(H^p\) is finite dimensional and there is the direct sum decomposition of the space \(E^p(M)\) of smooth \(p\)-forms on \(M\) given by \(E^p(M)=\Delta(M)\oplus H^p\). Consequently, the equation \(\Delta\omega=\alpha\) has a solution in \(E^p(M)\) if and only if the \(p\)-form \(\alpha\) is orthogonal to the space \(H^p\). Some applications of the Hodge-de Rham Theorem are used to study some related results concerning a class of partial differential equation.