Existence of partitions of unity on paracompact manifolds
On a paracompact smooth manifold, every open cover admits a smooth partition of unity subordinate to it.
Let be a paracompact smooth manifold and let be an open cover of . Then there is a family of smooth functions such that:
- the supports form a locally finite family;
- for every ; and
- for every .
Such a family is a smooth partition of unity subordinate to the cover.
Use
Local finiteness makes weighted sums locally finite, allowing compatible local constructions to be assembled globally. This is a standard tool for constructing metrics and connections on vector bundles.