Can we develop differential theory out of Euclidean spaces, just with the structure of topological groups?

78 Views Asked by At

It is well known to all that we define the differential of the map $f:R^n\to R^m$ at $x$ to be the linear map $Df(x)$, which satisfies that $$ f(x+h)-f(x)= Df(x)h+o(h) $$ Now I think linear maps as morphisms from $R^n\to R^m$, in the category of topological groups. So I think it OK to define the differential of maps between topological groups, i.e.

Definition:

Suppose $G,H$ are topological groups, $f$ be a map from $G$ to $H$, we say $f$ is differentiable(maybe plus the phrase 'on the right') at $g\in G$ if there is a map $Df(g)\in Hom(G,H)$ satisfies $$ f(gr)=f(g)[Df(g) r] o(r) $$ where $o(r)$ still means $o(r)$ passes to $e_{H}$ when $r$ passes to $e_{G}$, in their corresponding topology.

Although this definition is at least formally natural, I can not judge whether it is meaningful. Indeed, I came up with clues that in general case this definition leads to too much limits.

Firstly, It is natural to consider things(I call them group-folds?) like manifolds, if we care about things locally like Lie groups, their underlying topology are compatible with their manifold structure, so the lie-group-folds are still manifolds, nothing new happens.

As to the maps, take torus as an example, their automorphisms are discrete, as a result, the differentiable maps played between themselves have to be group homomorphisms. This is not interesting too.

Moreover, I do not know whether there is natural topology on Homomorphisms, this is also a trouble preventing us from defining $C1$ maps.

But I also feel that maps like this behave somewhat properly to illustrate the symmetry of topological groups.

So I wonder under which case this definition may be interesting? Or it is just a boring generalization?