Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 iii Paper 159 1 Solution 2026-09-28
The Picard group is the set of isomorphism classes of line bundles on , with tensor product as addition, the trivial bundle as zero and the dual bundle as inverse. On a smooth projective surface, line bundles can be represented by divisors. The intersection pairing on the Picard group of a surface is the symmetric bilinear mapobtained by moving the divisors into proper position and counting their intersections with multiplicity.
The surfaceis the first Hirzebruch surface . If is its negative section and a fiber of the ruling, its Picard lattice of a Hirzebruch surface is
Now let be the given nonisomorphic birational morphism. A birational morphism between smooth projective surfaces factors as a nonempty sequence of point blowups. Let , and take the total transform on of the exceptional curve of the first blowup. The intersection formula for blowing up a surface givesTherefore the nonzero Picard group element satisfiesThis is the isotropic divisor from a nontrivial birational morphism to the projective plane.
For a morphism , the pullback of the hyperplane bundle has the formfor an integer . If a line is contracted to a point, this bundle restricts trivially to , whereasIts degree is therefore zero, so . The homogeneous sections defining are then constants, and is constant. This proves the morphism from the projective plane contracting a line criterion.
Finally choose an integer and blow up distinct points of the smooth curve . For the resulting morphism , let be the exceptional curves. The strict transform isand the self-intersection after blowing up points on a smooth curve formula givesBlowing up a smooth point of a smooth curve does not change that curve itself, so is an isomorphism.