Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2004 iii Paper 51 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Interpret triviality as holomorphic triviality. Choose a global holomorphic bundle frame for . Let have as its columns the coordinates of these sections in the prescribed local frame over , with the convention that a fiber coordinate vector transforms as . ThenEach is holomorphic and invertible because its columns form a basis in every fiber. This proves the requested holomorphic splitting of transition functions on a trivial bundle. Smooth or topological triviality alone would not justify holomorphic splitting.
For the line bundle on projective twistor space, pull its patching function back to the twistor line using the incidence convention of this problem, , without an extra factor of . Triviality on each line gives nonvanishing linewise holomorphic functions with . The factors can be chosen as holomorphic functions of locally: a degree-zero scalar transition function has zero winding on the overlap annulus, hence admits a logarithm there; splitting its positive and negative Laurent series parts gives factors whose coefficients are Cauchy integrals that are holomorphic functions of . The explicit splitting is worked out below. Their only common linewise ambiguity is multiplication by a nonzero function : the ratio is a global holomorphic function on the compact complex projective line, hence constant on that line.
Take , and raise a two-component spinor by left multiplication with . The derivative along an alpha-plane is . It annihilates the unsplit twistor function, becauseThusis holomorphic on the whole line and has projective weight one. A section of is linear in the homogeneous coordinates: in an affine coordinate, holomorphic regularity at infinity bounds its growth to at most first order, so the Cauchy integral formula excludes all higher powers. ThereforeThe inverse splitting functions obey . Commuting these two equations provesThe spinor decomposition of gauge curvature iswhere both two-component spinors are symmetric. Vanishing of the contraction for every forces . This is exactly the anti-self-dual Maxwell equations. Since the Abelian gauge curvature is , it is closed; its duality condition also makes it co-closed, giving the source-free Maxwell equations. Changing both splitting factors by changes by , the expected Abelian gauge transformation. This derives the rank-one Penrose-Ward correspondence in the needed local form.
For the exponential patching function, choose a representative of the Čech cohomology class, of homogeneous degree zero. On the overlap of the two line patches write . To compute the gauge potential explicitly, use a constant two-component spinor basis in which and the finite patch . Then , andFor a positively oriented contour in the overlap annulus, split its Laurent series asThe first is holomorphic inside the contour, the second outside including infinity; split . Since , coefficient comparison gives . Applying that operator separately to cancels all nonconstant terms and leavesThus yields and . MoreoverSubstitution gives , which in homogeneous form is preciselyThis is the Abelian Ward splitting by Laurent series. The factors have weights , respectively, so the integrand is invariant under a change of homogeneous representative. The contour avoids ; the basis chosen above places that point at infinity. One can keep the contour fixed for in a sufficiently small domain, allowing differentiation under the integral.
Finally differentiate the contour potential for an anti-self-dual Maxwell field. By the twistor incidence relation, . ConsequentlyThe second equality uses the elementary two-spinor identity in the declared convention. The remaining two-component spinor is symmetric in , and no primed symmetric gauge curvature part survives. This directly verifies is anti-self-dual. In complexified Lorentzian signature duality has Hodge star eigenvalues ; here the vanishing primed two-component spinor fixes the stated ASD convention rather than incorrectly imposing the Euclidean equation on that signature.