The Essence of de Rham Cohomology

Abstract

The study of differential forms that are closed but not exact reveals important information about the global topology of a manifold, encoded in the de Rham cohomology groups $H^k(M)$, named after Georges de Rham (1903-1990). This expository paper provides an explanation and exploration of de Rham cohomology and its equivalence to singular cohomology. We present an intuitive introduction to de Rham cohomology and discuss four associated computational tools: the Mayer-Vietoris theorem, homotopy invariance, Poincar\'e duality, and the K\"unneth formula. We conclude with a statement and proof of de Rham's theorem, which asserts that de Rham cohomology is equivalent to singular cohomology.