What is a submersion?

Question

Don't misunderstand me, I read the Wikipedia article and I understood the definition - i.e. a function $f:\mathbb R^m\supseteq U\to\mathbb R^n$ is a submersion if $rk(f)\equiv n$, meaning that the differential is surjective everywhere.

I also know the connection to submanifolds, stating that a subset $M\subseteq\mathbb R^n$ is an $m$-dimensional $C^k$-submanifold if for every $p\in M$ there exists an environment $V\subseteq\mathbb R^n$ and a $C^k$-submersion $f:V\to\mathbb R^{n-m}$ such that $M\cap V=f^{-1}(0)$.

But what is a submersion? Is there any visual understanding of it? And how can one intuitively understand the connection to submanifolds?

I'm aware that this is not a mathematical precise question and hence am not expecting formally correct answers, I'm just trying to gain a deeper understanding to submersions.

Answer 1

Let me recall a famous result due to Ehresmann:

Theorem. (Ehresmann.) A proper submersion is a fiber bundle.

So, basically, if you work in a compact domain (a closed manifold), then you can visualize submersions $f\colon M \to N$ as maps which allow you to see the domain locally as a product of the fiber and an open set in the codomain. Think for example about the natural projection of the tangent bundle. This has lots of implications, for instance you can show that the Euler-Poincaré satisfies $\chi(M)=\chi(N)\cdot \chi(F)$ where $F$ denotes the fiber space.

Answer 2

I think the answer you're looking for is very simple. The prototype of a submersion is the (linear) projection map $\pi\colon \Bbb R^m\to\Bbb R^n$ with $m\ge n$: Writing $\Bbb R^m = \Bbb R^n\times\Bbb R^{m-n}$, the map is given by $\pi(x,y)=x$. As an application of the inverse function theorem, you can prove that, any submersion $f\colon X\to Y$ ($X$, $Y$ manifolds—your $U$ and $\Bbb R^n$ if you like), in appropriate local coordinates on $X$ and $Y$ the mapping $f$ will be given exactly by $\pi$.