Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 13 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
A ring homomorphism is understood to preserve . Start with . Its map on spectra of rings isContraction gives a prime ideal, and . Thus is continuous for the Zariski topology. On each principal open subscheme, the structure sheaf map is the ring homomorphismThese maps commute with restrictions, so they define a sheaf morphism . At , with , its stalk map is . The inverse image of the maximal ideal is , so this is a local homomorphism. We have constructed a morphism of locally ringed spaces.
Conversely, let be a morphism of locally ringed spaces. Its map on global sections gives , using and . Fix and put . Compatibility with the stalk maps and the local homomorphism property giveConsequently , so the underlying map is forced. On , the sheaf morphism is forced as well: it extends and sends to a unit, hence agrees with the displayed map by the universal property of localization. The principal open subschemes form a basis, so the entire sheaf morphism is determined. Taking global sections of the construction recovers . The two constructions are inverse, proving the affine-target adjunction for schemes in the affine-source case:
To describe the real affine plane scheme points, write . It is a unique factorization domain of Krull dimension two. Its points are exactly the following prime ideals:
- , the generic point of the whole affine plane.
- for each nonconstant irreducible polynomial , taken up to multiplication by a nonzero real constant. These are the height-one points, each the generic point of the integral scheme .
- The maximal ideals, or closed points. By the Zariski lemma, their residue fields are finite algebraic extensions of . Because is a real closed field, those fields are or . The first type is with . The second type is the kernel of evaluation at a nonreal pair ; the pairs and give the same maximal ideal, and these are the only repetitions.
For completeness, any height-one prime ideal contains an irreducible polynomial ; since is already a height-one prime ideal, it must equal . Every remaining nonzero prime ideal has height two and is maximal, by Krull dimension. For a nonreal pair, evaluation generates all of over , so its kernel is maximal. Conversely, each residue field isomorphic to has exactly the two conjugate real-algebra embeddings into , proving the assertion about repetitions.
This describes the topology too: consists of the prime ideals containing , and the closure of a point is . In particular, the closure of is the whole affine plane, while the closure of contains precisely the closed points on , together with itself. The spectrum is much larger than the set . For example, is a height-one point although its curve has no real points. Its structure sheaf has and stalk at .
The induced morphism of schemesis contraction of prime ideals, with the structure sheaf maps given above. On closed points, it sends to the kernel of real-polynomial evaluation at . A real closed point has one complex point above it; a nonreal closed point has two, interchanged by complex conjugation. The source generic point maps to the target generic point. The source height-one points are generated by irreducible complex polynomials . Their contractions are height-one prime ideals , and is a factor of over . An irreducible real either stays irreducible over or splits into two distinct conjugate irreducible factors. Indeed, complex conjugation acts transitively on its distinct factors, or a proper orbit product would give a real factor of ; every orbit has size at most two. Repeated factors are excluded by separability in characteristic zero. Thus one or two height-one points lie above .
The complexification fibres of a real scheme give a uniform description of all scheme-theoretic fibres, including the nonclosed points, is especially useful. The extension of coordinate rings isa free -module with basis . At , with residue field , the scheme-theoretic fibre isIf is a square in , the Chinese remainder theorem gives , hence two points. Otherwise it is a quadratic field extension, hence one point. The polynomial has no repeated root in characteristic zero, so all these scheme-theoretic fibres are reduced schemes. This also proves surjectivity. Conjugation acts on each two-point fibre by exchanging its points and fixes each one-point fibre. As a finite morphism, is closed, so its underlying topological space is the quotient by complex conjugation. The fibre formula explains why a real closed point gives one complex point, whereas the generic point gives a single point with residue field .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 20 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A morphism of schemes is a morphism of locally ringed spaces. Thus it consists of a continuous map and a homomorphism of sheaves of ringssuch that, for every , the induced map on stalksis a local homomorphism: it carries the maximal ideal of the source into the maximal ideal of the target. Equivalently, the inverse image of the target maximal ideal is the source maximal ideal. The locality condition on every stalk distinguishes a morphism of schemes from a general morphism of ringed spaces.