Ample cone 2026-10-05
The ample cone consists of real numerical divisor classes represented by ample real divisors. It is an open convex cone, and Kleiman's criterion identifies it with the interior of the nef cone.
Closed cone of curves 2026-10-05
The closed cone of curves is the closure in of the convex cone generated by classes of integral curves. A nef divisor pairs nonnegatively with this entire closed cone. Its boundary can contain limiting classes which are not represented by one curve.
Copositive cone 2026-10-05
The real symmetric matrices that are copositive matrices form a closed convex cone:Each fixed gives a closed linear inequality in . Their intersection is therefore closed and convex, and it is preserved by nonnegative scaling.
Nef cone 2026-10-05
The nef cone is the closed convex cone of nef divisor classes. It is dual to the closed cone of curves. Its interior is the ample cone on a projective scheme.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 134 3 iii d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Choose as in (c). Thenis the sum of a nef divisor and an ample real divisor. The nef-plus-ample ampleness lemma givesFor clarity, this last lemma follows from Kleiman's criterion and the convex cone property: if is an interior point of the nef cone and lies in that cone, translating a small neighbourhood of by stays in the cone. Thus remains in its interior, which is the ample cone on a projective scheme.
The complete argument proves the real Nakai–Moishezon criterion rather than assuming it: curve positivity gives nefness, rational approximation and a proved section-count inequality give bigness, induction and the finite-support argument give a uniform ample subtraction, and the nef-plus-ample lemma concludes ampleness. The zero-dimensional case is automatic, and ampleness on reduced components handles reducibility and nilpotents.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 139 3 vi Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The space of real numerical divisor classes is . Write any big class as , with an ample real divisor and effective. For a sufficiently small perturbation , the class remains in the open ample cone, so remains big by part (v). Thus is open. Positive scaling and addition preserve the ample-plus-effective expression, so it is a convex cone.
For , fix a very ample divisor . The linear functional is strictly positive on every big class: the ample part contributes positively and the effective part nonnegatively. No nonzero linear subspace can be contained in this cone, since it would contain both and . In particular the zero class is not big in positive dimension. When , , so there is no positive-dimensional subspace to consider. Therefore
Positive-semidefinite-plus-nonnegative cone 2026-10-05
The sums of a real positive semidefinite matrix and a symmetric nonnegative matrix form a convex cone inside the copositive cone. Both terms have nonnegative quadratic forms on the nonnegative orthant. The Horn copositive matrix shows that the inclusion is strict in dimension five; the sum of squares criterion for a biquadratic form explains this cone's relation to semidefinite programming.