Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 17 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the toric scheme over a base ring construction over . Take the cocharacter lattice of an algebraic torus and dual character lattice of an algebraic torus . For every , setThese cones in toric geometry, together with their rays and the zero cone, form an infinite fan in toric geometry. Adjacent two-dimensional cones meet in their common ray; all other pairs meet only at zero. Thus the face and intersection axioms hold even though there are infinitely many charts.
The consecutive vectors are a basis of , since their determinant is . The dual cone has integral generatorswith , , , . Its integral points form the free commutative monoid . Hence the associated semigroup algebra chart is simplyOn the dense algebraic torus, write and . The chart coordinates areAlthough these expressions use inverses on the torus, are regular on the indicated charts.
The common-ray chart of and is , identified with byThe inverse is , . Nonadjacent charts meet in the common dense torus, and all transition maps agree there with the same characters of an algebraic torus , so their cocycle identities follow. By gluing of schemes along open subschemes, these charts construct a scheme .
The lattice projection carries every into the nonnegative ray of the fan of the affine line. It therefore defines a toric morphismExplicitly its pullback on each chart sends to . The adjacent-chart formula preserves that product, so the local morphisms glue.
Compute its scheme-theoretic fibre over :This is the union of the two coordinate affine lines, each with multiplicity one. Let denote the toric divisor corresponding to . Its part in is , with coordinate ; its part in is , with coordinate . On the overlap these coordinates satisfy . Consequently these two affine lines glue toThe neighbouring components meet at the section , isomorphic to . No other components meet. Every special-fibre chart has exactly these two branches and no embedded or extra components. ThusThe union is an infinite chain, not a finite-type curve disguised as one: its infinitely many components account for the infinitely many toric charts.
Over the principal open subset , both and are units because their product is . Every chart then becomes the same torus chart:The transition maps identify the coordinate exactly, soThis is the generic region described in the question; over the actual generic point of its fibre is .
The construction is also flat. Indeed, each node chart has a free -module basisEvery monomial reduces uniquely by taking out , and the resulting monomials are independent. Thus the chart morphisms are flat morphisms. This verifies directly that the semistable infinite chain from a toric fan is a degeneration of the multiplicative group scheme rather than an unrelated special fibre.
The infinite toric fan, its chain of projective lines, and the period-three quotient fibre
. Details. Toric scheme over a base ring 2026-10-14
Given a dual pair of free lattices and a rational fan, glue over common-face charts. The monoid rings are semigroup algebras. A lattice map respecting cones gives a toric morphism. This construction works over a commutative ring , including , and also for an infinite fan in toric geometry.
// Target: toric-geometry.bigb
