In topology, a branch of mathematics, a manifoldM may be decomposed or split by writing M as a combination of smaller pieces. When doing so, one must specify both what those pieces are and how they are put together to form M.
Manifold decomposition works in two directions: one can start with the smaller pieces and build up a manifold, or start with a large manifold and decompose it. The latter has proven a very useful way to study manifolds: without tools like decomposition, it is sometimes very hard to understand a manifold. In particular, it has been useful in attempts to classify 3-manifolds and also in proving the higher-dimensional Poincaré conjecture.
The table below is a summary of the various manifold-decomposition techniques. The column labeled "M" indicates what kind of manifold can be decomposed; the column labeled "How it is decomposed" indicates how, starting with a manifold, one can decompose it into smaller pieces; the column labeled "The pieces" indicates what the pieces can be; and the column labeled "How they are combined" indicates how the smaller pieces are combined to make the large manifold.
Depends on dimension. In dimension 3, a theorem by Edwin E. Moise gives that every 3-manifold has a unique triangulation, unique up to common subdivision. In dimension 4, not all manifolds are triangulable. For higher dimensions, general existence of triangulations is unknown.
