Divisor class group of a plane-curve complement Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
If is an irreducible plane curve of degree , the localization sequence for the divisor class group quotients by the class . Nonsingularity of the removed curve is not required; irreducibility makes it a single removed prime Weil divisor.
For , the Čech cochain complex has groups
Terms in cancel in pairs, and Čech cohomology is . A degree-zero cocycle is exactly a family of compatible local sections. The sheaf gluing axiom gives their unique global section, proving . If the cover has affine finite intersections, a quasi-coherent sheaf has no higher cohomology on those intersections by vanishing of quasi-coherent cohomology on an affine scheme. The acyclic cover theorem then identifies all Čech groups with sheaf cohomology. In particular, a finite affine open cover of a separated variety has this property.
For the sheaf of units of the structure sheaf, a multiplicative degree-one cocycle is a family satisfying , with . It glues trivial rank-one free modules into an invertible sheaf. Changing the local frames multiplies by a coboundary, and two sets of transition data give isomorphic line bundles precisely when their cocycles differ this way. Tensoring line bundles multiplies their cocycles. Thus line bundles trivialized by an open cover give the group isomorphism
For the remaining arguments, work over the algebraically closed ground field. On the irreducible variety , put , a quotient of sheaves of abelian groups. A global section of is locally represented by rational functions whose ratios are regular units. The corresponding unit cocycle defines an invertible sheaf. A single global rational function has trivial cocycle. Conversely, every line bundle has a nonzero rational section: choose a nonzero vector in its one-dimensional fibre at the generic point and express it in local frames. This supplies such local . If the associated line bundle is trivial, changing frames makes all restrictions of one rational function. Therefore
is exact. This is the Cartier-divisor description of the Picard group. The sheaf of nonzero rational functions on an irreducible variety is flasque, since all restrictions between nonempty open sets are the identity on . Apply the long exact sequence in sheaf cohomology to . Since , its connecting map has exactly the cokernel just computed, proving
Finally the Segre description of a smooth quadric surface identifies with . The two rulings of a smooth quadric surface have classes generating . For completeness, remove one line in each ruling: the remaining chart is the affine plane, with factorial coordinate ring and trivial divisor class group. The localization sequence for the divisor class group makes generators, and their degrees on the two ruling lines prove independence. The hyperplane class, and hence the conic , has bidegree . By Picard-group localization on a smooth variety, the Picard group of a smooth affine quadric surface is
Explicitly, the restriction of is nontrivial: if it were trivial on , its rational trivialization would have divisor supported on , forcing to be an integer multiple of , which is impossible.
Let . The localization sequence for the divisor class group gives
Every prime Weil divisor of extends by closure to one of , and the only removed prime Weil divisor is . Rational functions have the same function field on the two spaces, so the kernel on divisor class groups consists exactly of multiples of .
The divisor class group of is , generated by the class of a line. To see the degree identification, if a plane curve has degree and homogeneous equation , then , for a line equation , is a rational function with principal Weil divisor . Degrees of principal Weil divisors are zero, so has infinite order. In particular, . The localization sequence therefore yields
This is the divisor class group of a plane-curve complement. It includes , when the group is zero, and does not require the removed curve to be nonsingular.
The scheme is Noetherian, integral, separated, and regular. Every open subscheme inherits these properties, so satisfies . Because has dimension one, it has codimension two in and contains no prime Weil divisor. The localization sequence for the divisor class group therefore makes restriction an isomorphism
The hyperplane divisor generates the class group of projective space, so
A Cartier divisor on an integral scheme is an open cover together with nonzero rational functions such that every ratio is a regular unit on .
Every prime Weil divisor on is cut out by an irreducible homogeneous polynomial because the polynomial ring is a unique factorization domain. Hence any Weil divisor can be represented by a homogeneous rational expression
of some total degree . On the standard chart , put . This is a degree-zero rational function, and on ,
is a regular unit. These local equations form a Cartier divisor whose associated Weil divisor is the original one.
Now put and let be the hyperplane divisor at infinity. Its complement is . Iterating the given invariance under multiplication by gives
The localization sequence for the divisor class group shows that every class on is a pullback of a class on plus an integer multiple of . Restriction to the generic fiber kills pullbacks from and sends to the generator of . Therefore the sum is direct, proving
This is the divisor class group of a projective-space bundle with trivial vector bundle.
For a smooth integral variety, every Weil divisor is a Cartier divisor, so the Picard group equals the divisor class group. If is obtained by removing irreducible Weil divisors , the localization sequence for the divisor class group gives the displayed exact sequence. A rational trivialization of a line bundle on has divisor supported on the removed divisors, describing the kernel concretely.