Averaging differential forms over the circle Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let act on by rotation of the second factor. Averaging a differential form over this action is a cochain map. Every rotation is homotopic to the identity through smooth rotations, and integrating Cartan's magic formula along them gives a cochain homotopy between the averaging map and the identity. Consequently every de Rham cohomology class has a rotation-invariant representative, and an invariant exact form has an invariant primitive obtained by averaging any primitive.
Let be a finite affine open cover of the projective scheme . For a coherent sheaf , form the Čech cochain complex
The two ways to omit any pair of indices have opposite signs, giving . Its cohomology groups are
A projective scheme over a field is a separated scheme. Finite intersections of its affine opens are affine, and a coherent sheaf is quasi-coherent. Higher sheaf cohomology of a quasi-coherent sheaf on an affine scheme vanishes. Thus this is an acyclic cover and the acyclic cover theorem identifies the displayed Čech cohomology with . In particular its degree-zero kernel glues compatible local sections to . A cover by opens also gives vanishing for .
For the cohomology of twists on projective space, take with the usual grading and . On an intersection indexed by the nonempty set ,
This follows directly from the construction of the twisting sheaf on projective space: sections of the twist are the degree- homogeneous fractions in the corresponding localization. The Čech differential preserves each Laurent monomial , where and . Such a monomial appears precisely in summands with
The complex therefore decomposes as the direct sum of finite-dimensional cochain complexes indexed by these exponent vectors. Their differentials have only the alternating signs of the simplex incidence maps.
If , this is the ordinary unaugmented simplex cochain complex: its degree-zero kernel consists of the common value on every vertex and has dimension one, while all higher cohomology vanishes. If , choose . A cochain homotopy inserting into the ordered index list, with the sign of that insertion, contracts this subcomplex. Insertion or deletion of preserves the condition ; in , terms inserting and deleting different vertices cancel in pairs, while the term inserting then deleting is the identity. Thus this entire monomial subcomplex is acyclic. Finally, if all , the monomial occurs only in the full intersection, in degree , and contributes one copy of there.
For , these three cases give the complete answer:
In the first case counting nonnegative exponent vectors gives . In the top case write with ; then , giving
This is the Laurent-monomial description of top cohomology on projective space. All intermediate degrees vanish for every twist, and the top degree vanishes when . If , then and every twist is trivial, so for every integer , with all higher groups zero.
For a cochain complex , define the shift of a cochain complex by
For a cochain map , put . This is again a cochain map, so the construction is a functor. The sign ensures the standard cone identities; the shifted differential squares to zero. Iteration gives and differential , and .
For , its algebraic mapping cone is
Applying this differential twice gives first component , since is a cochain map, and second component . The maps
are cochain maps: and . They are maps of complexes of sheaves, because every displayed operation is a sheaf morphism in each degree.
The bounded below derived category of sheaves can be constructed by first quotienting the category of bounded below cochain complexes by cochain homotopy and then formally inverting all quasi-isomorphisms. A morphism may be represented by a roof . Alternatively, take injective resolutions of sheaves and use homotopy classes of maps between the resulting injective complexes. The cohomology sheaf functors descend to the localization, because they already identify homotopic maps and turn quasi-isomorphisms into isomorphisms. If in , applying these functors gives for every . Conversely, if all these sheaves vanish, the unique map is a quasi-isomorphism, which becomes invertible in . Hence
An exact triangle in a derived category is a triangle isomorphic to a cone triangle
In particular the last arrow is part of the structure; a mere sequence of three objects with successive composite zero does not suffice.
Suppose is degreewise exact. Define
Then , so is a cochain map. It is natural under maps of short exact sequences. It is degreewise surjective as a sheaf map, and its kernel can be identified with using . In these coordinates the kernel differential is
There is a contracting homotopy in degree :
Thus the kernel has zero cohomology sheaves. The cohomology-sheaf exact sequence is the sequence of the short exact sequence of complexes , or equivalently its ordinary complex-cohomology sequence at every stalk. It follows that induces isomorphisms of all cohomology sheaves, proving
Under this isomorphism the cone triangle becomes the exact triangle
where in the derived category.
For the final construction write and set , , , each initially placed in degree zero. The stated sequence is exact on stalks: on its first map is an isomorphism and its last sheaf is zero; on the equator its first sheaf is zero and the second map is an isomorphism. Take its connecting morphism
The source has only , whereas the target has only . Therefore every induced map is zero: in any degree at least one of its source and target is zero. This is a ghost morphism in a derived category.
To prove the derived morphism itself is nonzero, apply derived global sections, giving the hypercohomology sequence. The extension by zero identifies with the compactly supported cohomology of , and closed direct image identifies with . The complement is two open disks, each homeomorphic to , so
The degree-one part of the resulting exact sequence is
Thus is injective, in particular nonzero. With the hemispheres oriented from , the last map is , so an appropriately oriented equator generator maps to . A zero morphism in the derived category of sheaves would induce a zero map after derived global sections and taking cohomology. Consequently , although for every . This establishes explicitly that the collection of cohomology-sheaf functors detects zero objects but is not faithful on morphisms.
Order the index set of the open cover . For the sheaf of abelian groups , the Čech cochain group is
It is a product, not a finite-support sum. The Čech coboundary is
Every term in occurs twice with opposite signs, so . The Čech cohomology of the cover is . Refinements induce maps on these groups; different choices of refinement indices give maps related by a cochain homotopy, hence the same map on cohomology. Taking the direct limit over covers gives
One may use locally finite covers, since a complex manifold is a paracompact space and these covers are cofinal. In degree zero this recovers the group of global sections by the sheaf gluing axiom.