The c∞-topology
Let
be a locally convex vector space. A curve
is called smooth or
if all derivatives exist and are continuous. Let
be the space of smooth curves. It can be shown that the set of smooth curves does not depend entirely on the locally convex
topology of
only on its associated bornology (system of bounded sets); see [KM], 2.11.
The final topologies with respect to the following sets of mappings into
coincide; see [KM], 2.13.

- The set of all Lipschitz curves (so that
is bounded in
for each
).
- The set of injections
where
runs through all bounded absolutely convex subsets in
and where
is the linear span of
equipped with the Minkowski functional 
- The set of all Mackey convergent sequences
(there exists a sequence
with
bounded).
This topology is called the
-topology on
and we write
for the resulting topological space.
In general (on the space
of smooth functions with compact support on the real line, for example) it is finer than the given locally convex topology, it is not a vector space topology, since addition is no longer jointly continuous. Namely, even
The finest among all locally convex topologies on
which are coarser than
is the bornologification of the given locally convex topology. If
is a Fréchet space, then 
Main properties of smooth calculus
1. For maps on Fréchet spaces this notion of smoothness coincides with all other reasonable definitions. On
this is a non-trivial theorem, proved by Boman, 1967. See also [KM], 3.4.
2. Multilinear mappings are smooth if and only if they are bounded ([KM], 5.5).
3. If
is smooth then the derivative
is smooth, and also
is smooth where
denotes the space of all bounded linear mappings with the topology of uniform convergence on bounded subsets; see [KM], 3.18.
4. The chain rule holds ([KM], 3.18).
5. The space
of all smooth mappings
is again a convenient vector space where the structure is given by the following injection, where
carries the topology of compact convergence in each derivative separately; see [KM], 3.11 and 3.7.

6. The exponential law holds ([KM], 3.12): For
-open
the following mapping is a linear diffeomorphism of convenient vector spaces.

This is the main assumption of variational calculus. Here it is a theorem. This property is the source of the name convenient, which was borrowed from (Steenrod 1967).
7. Smooth uniform boundedness theorem ([KM], theorem 5.26).
A linear mapping
is smooth (by (2) equivalent to bounded) if and only if
is smooth for each
.
8. The following canonical mappings are smooth. This follows from the exponential law by simple categorical reasonings, see [KM], 3.13.
- :\prod C^{\infty }(E_{i},F_{i})\to C^{\infty }\left(\prod E_{i},\prod F_{i}\right)\end{aligned}}}
![{\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}&\operatorname {ev} :C^{\infty }(E,F)\times E\to F,\quad {\text{ev}}(f,x)=f(x)\\[6pt]&\operatorname {ins} :E\to C^{\infty }(F,E\times F),\quad {\text{ins}}(x)(y)=(x,y)\\[6pt]&(\quad )^{\wedge }:C^{\infty }(E,C^{\infty }(F,G))\to C^{\infty }(E\times F,G)\\[6pt]&(\quad )^{\vee }:C^{\infty }(E\times F,G)\to C^{\infty }(E,C^{\infty }(F,G))\\[6pt]&\operatorname {comp} :C^{\infty }(F,G)\times C^{\infty }(E,F)\to C^{\infty }(E,G)\\[6pt]&C^{\infty }(\quad ,\quad ):C^{\infty }(F,F_{1})\times C^{\infty }(E_{1},E)\to C^{\infty }(C^{\infty }(E,F),C^{\infty }(E_{1},F_{1})),\quad (f,g)\mapsto (h\mapsto f\circ h\circ g)\\[6pt]&\prod :\prod C^{\infty }(E_{i},F_{i})\to C^{\infty }\left(\prod E_{i},\prod F_{i}\right)\end{aligned}}}](https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/media/math/render/svg/311cb65cc419d2029c679e7a9f3e2d760e80001b)
Application: Manifolds of mappings between finite dimensional manifolds
The exponential law 6 of convenient calculus allows for very simple proofs of the basic facts about manifolds of mappings.
Let
and
be finite dimensional smooth manifolds where
is compact. We use an
auxiliary Riemann metric
on
. The Riemannian exponential mapping of
is described in the following diagram:

It induces an atlas of charts on the space
of all smooth mappings
as follows.
A chart centered at
, is:



Now the basics facts follow in easily.
Trivializing the pull back vector bundle
and applying the exponential law 6 leads to the diffeomorphism

All chart change mappings are smooth (
) since they map smooth curves to smooth curves:

Thus
is a smooth manifold modeled on Fréchet spaces. The space of all smooth curves in this manifold is given by

Since it visibly maps smooth curves to smooth curves, composition

is smooth. As a consequence of the chart structure, the tangent bundle of the manifold of mappings is given by

Regular Lie groups
Let
be a connected smooth Lie group modeled on convenient vector spaces, with Lie algebra
. Multiplication and inversion are denoted by:

The notion of a regular Lie group is originally due to Omori et al. for Fréchet Lie groups, was weakened and made more transparent by J. Milnor, and was then carried over to convenient Lie groups; see [KM], 38.4.
A Lie group
is called regular if the following two conditions hold:
- For each smooth curve
in the Lie algebra there exists a smooth curve
in the Lie group whose right logarithmic derivative is
. It turn out that
is uniquely determined by its initial value
, if it exists. That is,

If
is the unique solution for the curve
required above, we denote

- The following mapping is required to be smooth:

If
is a constant curve in the Lie algebra, then
is the group exponential mapping.
Theorem. For each compact manifold
, the diffeomorphism group
is a regular Lie group. Its Lie algebra is the space
of all smooth vector fields on
, with the negative of the usual bracket as Lie bracket.
Proof: The diffeomorphism group
is a smooth manifold since it is an open subset in
. Composition is smooth by restriction. Inversion is smooth: If
is a smooth curve in
, then f(t, )−1
satisfies the implicit equation
, so by the finite dimensional implicit function theorem,
is smooth. So inversion maps smooth curves to smooth curves, and thus inversion is smooth.
Let
be a time dependent vector field on
(in
).
Then the flow operator
of the corresponding autonomous vector field
on
induces the evolution operator via

which satisfies the ordinary differential equation

Given a smooth curve in the Lie algebra,
,
then the solution of the ordinary differential equation depends smoothly also on the further variable
,
thus
maps smooth curves of time dependent vector fields to smooth curves of
diffeomorphism. QED.
The principal bundle of embeddings
For finite dimensional manifolds
and
with
compact, the space
of all smooth embeddings of
into
, is open in
, so it is a smooth manifold. The diffeomorphism group
acts freely and smoothly from the right on
.
Theorem:
is a principal fiber bundle with structure group
.
Proof: One uses again an auxiliary Riemannian metric
on
. Given
, view
as a submanifold of
, and split the restriction of the tangent bundle
to
into the subbundle normal to
and tangential to
as
. Choose a tubular neighborhood

If
is
-near to
, then

This is the required local splitting. QED
Further applications
An overview of applications using geometry of shape spaces and diffeomorphism groups can be found in [Bauer, Bruveris, Michor, 2014].