Do diffeomorphisms act transitively on a manifold?

differential-geometry manifolds

No; take $M$ to be the disjoint union of two smooth manifolds which are not diffeomorphic.

However, the statement is true if $M$ is connected. You do not need completeness. It suffices to show that the set of all points that can be reached from $x$ via some diffeomorphism is both open and closed.


You can find a demonstration of this fact (if M is connected) in the book of Milnor - Topology from the differentiable viewpoint. It is the lemma of homogeneity. In fact you have more :

Homogeneity Lemma: Let $y$ and $z$ be arbitray interior points of the smooth, connected manifold M. Then there exists a diffeomorphism $f:M\rightarrow M$ that is smoothly isotopic to the identity and carries $y$ into $z$.

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