TITLE: Is there a convenient differential calculus for cojets?
QUESTION [24 upvotes]: I understand the basics of exterior differential geometry and how to do calculus with exterior differential forms.  I know how to use this to justify the notation dy/dx as a literal ratio of the differentials dy and dx (by treating x and y as scalar-valued functions on a 1-dimensional manifold and introducing division formally).  I would like to extend this to second derivatives.  Ideally, this would justify the notation d2y/dx2 as a literal ratio.
I can't do this with the exterior differential, since both d2y and dx ∧ dx are zero in the exterior calculus.  It occurs to me that this would work if, instead of exterior differential forms (sections of the exterior bundle), I used sections of the cojet bundle (cojet differential forms).  In particular, while degree-2 exterior forms may be written in local coordinates as linear combinations of dxi ∧ dxj for i < j (so on a 1-dimensional manifold the only exterior 2-form is zero), degree-2 cojet forms may be written in local coordinates as linear combinations of d2x and dxi · dxj for i ≤ j (so on a 1-dimensional manifold the cojet 2-forms at a given point form a 2-dimensional space).
I know some places to read about cojets (and more so about jets) theoretically, but I don't know where to learn about practical calculations in a cojet calculus analogous to the exterior calculus.  In particular, I don't know any reference that introduces the concept of the degree-2 differential operator d2, much less one that gives and proves its basic properties.  I've even had to make up the notation ‘d2’ (although you can see where I got it) and the term ‘cojet differential form’.  I can work some things out for myself, but I'd rather have the confidence of seeing what others have done and subjected to peer review.
(Incidentally, I don't think that it is quite possible to justify d2y/dx2; the correct formula is d2y/dx2 − (dy/dx)(d2x/dx2); we cannot let d2x/dx2 vanish and retain the simplicity of the algebraic rules.  It would be better to write ∂2y/∂x2; the point is that this is the coefficient on dx2 in an expansion of d2y, just as ∂y/∂xi is the coefficient of dy on xi when y is a function on a higher-dimensional space.  The coefficient of d2y on d2x, which would be ∂2y/∂2x, is simply dy/dx again.)

REPLY [4 votes]: As far as I can tell, your example computation in the comments is a computation in the Hasse-Schmidt ring of a polynomial algebra.  Given a commutative ring $A$ and $A$-algebras $f:A \to B$ and $A \to R$, an order $k$ Hasse-Schmidt differential from $B$ to $R$ is a $k+1$-tuple $(D_0,\ldots,D_k)$ of $A$-module maps from $B$ to $R$ satisfying:

$D_i(f(a)) = 0$ for all $i \geq 1$ and all $a \in A$.
$D_i(b_1 \cdot b_2) = \sum_{j=0}^i D_j(b_1) D_{i-j}(b_2)$.

We write $Der^k_A(B,R)$ for the set of order $k$ differentials from $B$ to $R$.  There is a Hasse-Schmidt algebra $HS^k_{B/A}$ with universal $k$-derivation that represents the functor $Der^k_A(B,-)$, and its relative spectrum over $\operatorname{Spec} B$ is the relative $k$th jet space of $B/A$.  For example, $HS^0_{B/A} = B$, and $HS^1_{B/A} = Sym_B^*(\Omega_{B/A})$ yields the tangent bundle.  You can find this information in Vojta's EGA-style exposition.
Concretely, here is your example: Let $A$ be a ring such as $\mathbb{R}$, and let $B = A[x]$.  It is not hard to show that $HS^k_{B/A} \cong B[x^{(1)},x^{(2)},\ldots,x^{(k)}]$, with canonical maps $y \mapsto y^{(i)}$.  In terms of ordinary differentials, we have $x^{(i)} = \frac{1}{i!}d^ix$, and in particular, if we were to write the higher Leibniz rule with differentials, we would need some $\binom{i}{j}$ factors.  At any rate, repeated use of the Leibniz relation yields $d^2(x^3-3x) = (3x^2-3)d^2x + 6x(dx)^2$.
If you want to differentiate something twice, you use the fact that for any $y$, $dy$ is equal to $d^0 y' dx$ for some $y' \in B$, then apply the quotient rule: $d\left(\frac{dy}{dx}\right) = \frac{dx\cdot d^2 y - dy \cdot d^2 x}{(dx)^2}$.  In particular, you find that $d\left(\frac{dy}{dx}\right)/dx \neq \frac{d^2 y}{(dx)^2}$, because $\frac{d^2x}{(dx)^2} \neq 0$ in this ring.  If you really want the somewhat misleading notation $\frac{d^ky}{dx^k}$ to literally denote a $k$th derivative, you have to mod out by the ideal generated by $d^ix$ for $i \geq 2$.