Basepoint-free divisor Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
A divisor is basepoint-free when its global sections have no common zero. Its complete linear system therefore defines a Kodaira map everywhere.
We prove (c)(a) by induction on dimension. It suffices to work on an integral projective variety . By induction, is ample on every lower-dimensional integral subvariety, and hence on every lower-dimensional closed subscheme by ampleness on reduced components.
Apply (c) to itself. The nonzero section of has a nonempty zero divisor . Because is integral, this is an effective Cartier divisor and . Its support has dimension less than , so , and therefore , is ample. Part (ii) makes semiample, hence some positive multiple of is basepoint-free.
Let be the resulting Kodaira map, with . No fibre can have positive dimension: such a projective fibre contains an integral projective curve , on which has degree zero. But the assumed nonzero section of some cannot vanish anywhere, since its nonempty effective divisor would have positive degree. This contradicts (c).
Thus has zero-dimensional fibres. A proper quasi-finite morphism is a finite morphism. The finite pullback of an ample line bundle is ample, so and then are ample. This proves
The fibre argument proves the semiample and curve-positive ampleness criterion. It also explains why testing only existence of a nonzero section, without requiring a zero, would be insufficient: the trivial bundle on a positive-dimensional projective variety has a nowhere-vanishing section.
On , let be the negative section of a Hirzebruch surface, so , and let be the fiber class of a Hirzebruch surface, with and . The line bundle is very ample. Indeed, the toric ampleness criterion for is
and on a smooth complete toric variety every ample line bundle is very ample. These inequalities hold for .
Explicitly, after choosing the standard lattice coordinates for , its lattice polytope of a toric divisor is
The monomials indexed by the lattice points of this polygon separate torus orbits and tangent directions, so their Kodaira map is a closed embedding. This directly verifies that the resolved proper toric surface is projective.
Take the invariant divisor , whose class is . Its global sections are represented in the Cox ring by and . They have no common zero on , so is basepoint-free. Its Kodaira map is
This is exactly the ruling , and its fibers have divisor class .
A semiample divisor on an integral projective variety is ample if it has positive degree on every integral projective curve. Its Kodaira map cannot contract a positive-dimensional fibre, since such a fibre contains a curve and the pulled-back hyperplane bundle has degree zero there. Thus the morphism is proper and a quasi-finite morphism, hence a finite morphism. The finite pullback of an ample line bundle is ample.
Semiample divisor 2026-10-05
A Cartier divisor is semiample if some positive multiple is a basepoint-free divisor, equivalently its divisor line bundle has a globally generated positive power. Such a power defines a Kodaira map with . Semiampleness implies nefness but need not imply ampleness: a fibre divisor of a morphism to a curve is a basic example.