Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2010/iii/paper-16/3/ii/solution

Use the local-presentation definition of a quasi-coherent sheaf: locally it admits a presentation by direct sums of copies of the structure sheaf, with no finiteness requirement on the index sets. If is an -module, choose a free module presentation . Exactness of localization of a module gives the corresponding local presentation of . Hence a sheaf which is associated with a module on every affine open subset is a quasi-coherent sheaf.
For the converse, begin with a quasi-coherent sheaf and a local presentation on an affine open subset . The free sheaves have global sections and : a section has locally finite support, and quasi-compactness of makes its support finite globally. Part (i) identifies the presentation map with an -module homomorphism. Exactness of localization then identifies its cokernel sheaf with for the module cokernel . Thus there is an affine open cover on which is associated with modules.
It remains to show this on an arbitrary affine open subset , rather than only the selected cover. Around each point of , choose an affine neighborhood contained in with such a local presentation. Choose a finite cover refining these neighborhoods. On each the restriction is associated with a module. Its restriction to is therefore the corresponding localization, and the same is true after intersecting with . Put . The sheaf gluing axiom gives
where the arrow is the difference of the two restriction maps. Localization of a module commutes with kernels and finite products. Localizing this formula at therefore gives exactly the gluing formula for , covered by the . Consequently
compatibly with restriction. These isomorphisms on the principal open subsets identify with . We have proved the global-section localization for quasi-coherent sheaves and, in particular,

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