Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2024 / iii / Paper 152 / 2

The product fan for ${\mathbb{P}}^1\times {\mathbb{A}}^1$ has rays generated byand maximal cones $\mathrm{Cone}(e_1,e_2)$ and $\mathrm{Cone}(e_2,-e_1)$. The given fan is obtained by the star subdivision of the first maximal cone throughBy the toric blowup at a torus-fixed point, this subdivision blows up the torus-fixed point corresponding to $\mathrm{Cone}(e_1,e_2)$. Hencefor that torus-fixed point $p$.

The fan of the affine line consists of the zero cone and ${\mathbb{R}}_{\ge 0}{e}^{\prime }$. Under $\phi (e_1)=0$ and $\phi (e_2)=e^{\prime }$, the four primitive source rays map asEvery cone of the source fan consequently maps into ${\mathbb{R}}_{\ge 0}{e}^{\prime }$. The defining criterion for a toric morphism is satisfied, so $\phi$ inducesUnder the blowup description from part (i), this is the blowup map followed by the projection ${\mathbb{P}}^1\times {\mathbb{A}}^1\to {\mathbb{A}}^1$.

Before blowing up, the fiber over zero is the smooth curveand the blowup center $p$ lies on it. Its total transform is the union of the strict transform ${\tilde{F}}_0$ and the exceptional divisor $E$. Blowing up a smooth point of a smooth curve does not change the curve, so ${\tilde{F}}_0\cong {\mathbb{P}}^1$, while $E\cong {\mathbb{P}}^1$. They meet transversely in the single point recording the tangent direction of $F_0$ at $p$. Thereforeis two copies of the complex projective line meeting at one point.

The inverse image of the dense torus ${\mathbb{A}}^1\setminus \{0\}={\mathbb{G}}_m$ is represented by the subfan formed from cones mapping to the zero cone of the target fan. These areThis is the fan of the projective line in the $e_1$-axis, together with the zero fan in the complementary $e_2$-direction. By the product fan construction,It also follows geometrically because the blowup center lies over zero, so the blowup is unchanged over ${\mathbb{A}}^1\setminus \{0\}$.

Part (iii) givestwo complex projective lines meeting at one point. If $x\ne 0$, the fiber ${\mathbb{P}}^1\times \{x\}$ misses the blowup center. The blowup map is an isomorphism of algebraic varieties away from its center, sofor every nonzero closed point $x\in {\mathbb{A}}^1$.

The cone $\sigma =\mathrm{Cone}(e_1,e_2,e_3)$ and all its faces form the standard fan of affine three-space, soThe complete target fan has primitive raysand every cone generated by a proper subset of them. This is the two-dimensional simplex fan, hence

The images of the three rays of $\sigma$ areNo cone of the complete fan of ${\mathbb{P}}^2$ contains all three rays, so $\hat{\phi }(\sigma )$ is not contained in one target cone. Thus $\hat{\phi }$ is not a morphism of fans and does not define a regular toric morphism on all of $U_{\sigma }$.

On the dense algebraic torus, the pullbacks of the two standard target characters areUnder the standard torus chart $[u:v:1]\in {\mathbb{P}}^2$, the resulting rational map of toric varieties from a lattice homomorphism isIts homogeneous coordinates vanish simultaneously exactly at the origin. Hence its indeterminacy locus is $\{0\}$.

Letand let $\tilde{\Sigma }$ be the star subdivision of $\sigma$ through the ray ${\mathbb{R}}_{\ge 0}v$. Its maximal cones areSince $\hat{\phi }(v)=0$, their images lie respectively inThus $\hat{\phi }$ is a morphism of fans from $\tilde{\Sigma }$ to $\Sigma$.

The toric blowup at a torus-fixed point identifiesMore explicitly, the blowup of affine space at the origin is the total space of ${\mathcal{O}}_{{\mathbb{P}}^2}(-1)$. The induced toric morphismis its bundle projection: it sends a nonzero vector to its direction $[x_1:x_2:x_3]$ and restricts to the identity on the exceptional divisor ${\mathbb{P}}^2$. Therefore $g$ resolves the indeterminacy locus of $f$.