A globally generated line bundle on a quasi-compact scheme is generated by finitely many global sections. Each point has a section generating on an open neighbourhood, and quasi-compactness gives a finite subcover. This supplies a map into a fixed finite-dimensional projective space associated with that line bundle.
A line bundle is a globally generated line bundle when the evaluation map
is surjective. Equivalently, its global sections span each fibre of the line bundle; locally at every point, some section is a generator.
Choose a finite generating family . On the open set where generates , the ratios are regular functions, giving a morphism of schemes into the standard chart of projective space. The ratios obey the usual transition rules on overlaps, so these chart maps glue to
The tuple is computed using any local trivialization of ; changing that trivialization multiplies all entries by the same invertible function. The construction has and pulls back the coordinate sections to the chosen .
There is a finiteness qualification for an arbitrary : global generation alone need not provide such a finite family. It does if is quasi-compact, since the open sets on which individual sections generate have a finite subcover. Without that hypothesis, take and let restrict to on each component. This line bundle is globally generated, but any global sections have a common zero on a component with . Thus this is a globally generated line bundle without finite generators. This is finite global generation on a quasi-compact scheme. The finite-family construction is automatic in the projective case asked next.
For projective nonsingular , put . The length-two criterion for a very ample linear system says that is a closed immersion precisely when, after extending to an algebraic closure, separates distinct points and tangent directions. Equivalently, the evaluation
is surjective for every length-two geometric closed subscheme . Two distinct points give point separation; a nonreduced length-two subscheme supported at one point gives separation of a direction in the Zariski tangent space. For the complete space , this says exactly that is a very ample line bundle. For a chosen smaller , it is the chosen linear system of divisors which must be a very ample linear system; mere global generation is insufficient.
Put and let be the canonical global section cutting out the effective Cartier divisor . The divisor restriction exact sequence gives
The hypothesis says is an ample line bundle. By Serre vanishing, for all sufficiently large , so the long exact sequence in sheaf cohomology makes
surjective for all such . These are finite-dimensional vector spaces. Their dimensions form a nonincreasing sequence of nonnegative integers, so the maps are isomorphisms from some point on. Exactness then implies that the restriction
is surjective for all sufficiently large .
Choose such an for which is also a globally generated line bundle. Lift a generating collection of its global sections to . At each point of , one lift has nonzero image in the one-dimensional residue-field fibre, hence generates the stalk of by Nakayama lemma. Outside , is nowhere zero and generates . Together these sections generate it everywhere. Therefore
This proof works on an arbitrary projective scheme because the defining section of an effective Cartier divisor is a non-zero-divisor. If is empty, and the conclusion is immediate. Semiampleness is the conclusion: the pullback of a line avoiding the centre of a blowup of a smooth algebraic surface of satisfies the hypothesis on its support but has zero intersection with the exceptional curve, and therefore is not ample.
Tensor product of globally generated line bundles Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
The tensor product of two globally generated line bundles is globally generated. At a point choose generator germs arising from a global section of each factor. Their tensor is the germ of a global tensor-product section and generates the rank-one tensor-product stalk. Iteration gives the same property for every positive tensor power, on an arbitrary scheme.