Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 iii Paper 146 2 b Solution 2026-09-28
Take the Hirzebruch surface with its standard toric Kähler structure. Let be its negative section of a Hirzebruch surface, and let represent the fiber class of a Hirzebruch surface and meet once. ThusThe preceding smoothing produces an embedded symplectic in class .
Suppose a compatible almost complex structure made all three surfaces almost complex. Since and are distinct, Positive intersection of J-holomorphic curves would imply . Homologically, however,a contradiction. Hence this example cannot admit such a simultaneous compatible structure.
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.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 152 1 c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
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 isand 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 isThe 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.
Picard lattice of a Hirzebruch surface Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-05
For the Hirzebruch surface , the negative section of a Hirzebruch surface and a fiber class of a Hirzebruch surface freely generate and satisfy