Let be a finite affine open cover of the projective scheme . For a coherent sheaf , form the Čech cochain complex
The two ways to omit any pair of indices have opposite signs, giving . Its cohomology groups are
A projective scheme over a field is a separated scheme. Finite intersections of its affine opens are affine, and a coherent sheaf is quasi-coherent. Higher sheaf cohomology of a quasi-coherent sheaf on an affine scheme vanishes. Thus this is an acyclic cover and the acyclic cover theorem identifies the displayed Čech cohomology with . In particular its degree-zero kernel glues compatible local sections to . A cover by opens also gives vanishing for .
For the cohomology of twists on projective space, take with the usual grading and . On an intersection indexed by the nonempty set ,
This follows directly from the construction of the twisting sheaf on projective space: sections of the twist are the degree- homogeneous fractions in the corresponding localization. The Čech differential preserves each Laurent monomial , where and . Such a monomial appears precisely in summands with
The complex therefore decomposes as the direct sum of finite-dimensional cochain complexes indexed by these exponent vectors. Their differentials have only the alternating signs of the simplex incidence maps.
If , this is the ordinary unaugmented simplex cochain complex: its degree-zero kernel consists of the common value on every vertex and has dimension one, while all higher cohomology vanishes. If , choose . A cochain homotopy inserting into the ordered index list, with the sign of that insertion, contracts this subcomplex. Insertion or deletion of preserves the condition ; in , terms inserting and deleting different vertices cancel in pairs, while the term inserting then deleting is the identity. Thus this entire monomial subcomplex is acyclic. Finally, if all , the monomial occurs only in the full intersection, in degree , and contributes one copy of there.
For , these three cases give the complete answer:
In the first case counting nonnegative exponent vectors gives . In the top case write with ; then , giving
This is the Laurent-monomial description of top cohomology on projective space. All intermediate degrees vanish for every twist, and the top degree vanishes when . If , then and every twist is trivial, so for every integer , with all higher groups zero.
Put and . A homogeneous polynomial of positive degree is nonzero, and is an integral domain. Multiplication by therefore gives an exact sequence of coherent sheaves
where is the closed immersion.
We compute the necessary cohomology of twisting sheaves on projective space. The standard three affine open subsets and all their intersections are affine schemes. For a quasi-coherent sheaf, vanishing of quasi-coherent cohomology on an affine scheme and the acyclic cover theorem identify its sheaf cohomology with the Čech cohomology of this cover. In degree , the Čech cochain complex is
Decompose it into subcomplexes indexed by Laurent monomials with . Let . Such a monomial occurs in the summand for a nonempty index set precisely when , since only the variables in are inverted.
If is empty, the monomial contributes the cochain complex of a full two-simplex: its degree-zero cohomology is and its higher cohomology vanishes. If , the dimensions in degrees are ; the first map has rank one and the second map has rank one with the same kernel as the first map's image. If , there is one copy of in each of degrees and and the map between them is an isomorphism. These two cases are acyclic over every field, including characteristic two. If , only the degree-two term occurs, contributing one copy of . It follows that
and that , , and . Moreover the Laurent-monomial description of top cohomology on projective space gives a basis of consisting of
For , subtracting one from each counts these as . For there are no such triples, and the formula is also zero.
Use the long exact sequence in sheaf cohomology of the initial sequence, and cohomology under a closed immersion to identify the terms for . The vanishings just proved give
Therefore
This proves the cohomology of a projective plane hypersurface without imposing smoothness, irreducibility or reducedness. In particular, the second number is an arithmetic genus, not a claim about the genus of a normalization.