Differentiable spaces that are subcartesian

Abstract

We show that the differential structure of the orbit space of a proper action of a Lie group on a smooth manifold is continuously reflexive. This implies that the orbit space is a differentiable space in the sense of Smith, which ensures that the orbit space has an exterior algebra of differenial forms, which statisfies Smith's version of de Rham's theorem. Because the orbit space is a locally closed subcartesian space, it has vector fields and their flows.