An irreducible analytic subvariety of a complex manifold is a closed subset locally defined by finitely many holomorphic functions which cannot be expressed as the union of two proper closed analytic subsets. In a complex -manifold, codimension means pure complex dimension . A divisor on a complex manifold is a locally finite formal integer combination
of irreducible analytic hypersurfaces. Compactness makes the set of components in this sum finite. Negative coefficients are permitted; a local equation for such a divisor on a complex manifold is generally meromorphic rather than holomorphic.
We use these precise local facts. In holomorphic coordinates at , the local ring is , a Noetherian regular local ring and a unique factorization domain. Each analytic hypersurface germ has finitely many irreducible local branches; their prime ideals have height one and are generated by irreducible holomorphic germs. A holomorphic germ is a unit exactly when its value at is nonzero. Consequently a nonzero meromorphic germ with order zero on every local hypersurface branch is a holomorphic unit, by cancelling its irreducible factors in numerator and denominator. These are the auxiliary local-ring properties required below.
After shrinking a neighbourhood around each point, choose local branch equations , and put
Its zero and pole orders give exactly the local divisor on a complex manifold . A globally irreducible hypersurface may have several branches locally; all of them must be included with the indicated multiplicity. On an overlap, has zero order along every branch, so the local-ring facts show that it extends to a nowhere-zero holomorphic function. These germwise extensions patch uniquely to a holomorphic unit on the overlap. This describes a local defining function of and proves why multiplicities, not just zero sets, matter.
Set and glue line-bundle frames by . The identities give a holomorphic line bundle associated to a divisor, denoted . Equivalently, the frame can be represented by in the sheaf of meromorphic functions, so . If alternative equations are , where are holomorphic units, the corresponding frames are identified by . This respects the changed transitions. Refining the cover gives the same identifications, proving that is well-defined up to holomorphic bundle isomorphism. The expressions glue to its canonical meromorphic section, whose divisor is .
For two divisors on a complex manifold use a common cover with equations and . Their sum has equation , and the tensor product of vector bundles has frame transitions
Sending the sum-divisor frame to the tensor product of the two frames gives
This also yields .
For a nonsingular complex analytic hypersurface , choose reduced local equations with nonzero along . The holomorphic conormal bundle is
whose fibre is the annihilator of . It has local frame . Here this restriction is as a covector in the ambient cotangent bundle along , not its pullback to , where it would vanish. The line bundle has local frame , and if , then
since vanishes along . The frame identifications therefore patch and are fibrewise nonzero. This proves the conormal line of a smooth analytic hypersurface formula
Equivalently it identifies with the analytic conormal sheaf.