Canonical degree of a smooth plane curve Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For a smooth degree- projective plane curve , the adjunction formula gives . A hyperplane section has degree , so
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 25 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Choose a projective embedding of the abelian surface . By Bertini's theorem, a general hyperplane section is a smooth projective curve that is connected. It is ample, so . Choose and translate the inclusion so it sends to the identity of . The universal property of the Jacobian variety then gives a homomorphism of abelian varietieswhose composition with the based Abel map of an algebraic curve is this translated inclusion.
The image is a closed connected algebraic subgroup, since is projective, and it contains a translate of . If the image had dimension one, that irreducible curve would be the image subgroup itself. A distinct coset is disjoint from it and has the same numerical divisor class: translation acts trivially on cohomology, being homotopic to the identity on the complex torus. Its self-intersection would therefore be zero, contradicting . The image has dimension two and is all of . Thus is surjective, as expressed by the principle that an ample curve on an abelian surface generates the surface.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 118 3 e Solution 2026-10-03
Write as in part (d). Each very ample line bundle is the pullback of under a projective embedding. A hyperplane section therefore supplies an effective divisor on a complex manifold with . HenceEvery Picard group class is therefore in the image of the divisor-to-Picard map:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 4 24F a ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The adjunction formula gives . Since a hyperplane section has degree , the canonical degree of a smooth plane curve is
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 3 24F iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The intersection with a line is a hyperplane section:The canonical bundle of a smooth projective hypersurface formula, obtained from the adjunction formula, gives for a smooth degree-four curve in Thus , so the divisor class of is the canonical divisor class. Therefore is a canonical divisor. Its degree is also , consistently with .