Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 15 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Euler number and self-intersection. Orient the rank-two normal bundle by the orientations of and : the ordered tangent and normal spaces have the ambient orientation. Choose a smooth normal section transverse to the zero section. Its zeros are isolated, and their signed number is the evaluation of the Euler class on the fundamental class. Scale the section sufficiently small to lie in a tubular neighborhood. Its graph is a push-off isotopic to .
The intersections of with occur exactly at the zeros of . In a positively oriented local splitting , the basis formed from the tangent spaces to and to the graph has block matrixIts determinant is , so the local intersection sign is precisely the local zero index of the section. Summing proves the Euler number equals self-intersection identity
The conic. The given map is the degree-two Veronese map followed by the projective linear transformationThe Veronese map is injective with nonvanishing differential: on the chart its coordinates are , and on they are . It is therefore a smooth embedding, and is a smooth plane conic diffeomorphic to . Its equation in the given coordinates is .
Let be a projective line, with its complex orientation. The cohomology ring of complex projective space gives in . The hyperplane meets at and . The zeros of are simple in the respective local coordinates, and complex intersections have positive signs. Hence , so . The self-intersection number and the normal Euler class arewhere has .
The boundary of the tubular neighborhood. Write for the closed disk tubular neighborhood and for its boundary. This distinguishes the disk neighborhood from the vector normal bundle . The space is the oriented circle bundle of , with Euler class . The Gysin sequence containsThe middle map is multiplication by four, yielding and . The same Gysin sequence gives . The total space is a closed connected oriented three-manifold, so Poincare duality gives
The exterior. Work first with . A collar neighborhood of shows that its interior, the requested , has the same homotopy equivalence type: push the boundary a small positive distance into the collar. The Excision theorem and Thom isomorphism theorem identifyOnly degrees two and four are nonzero, each a copy of .
In degree four the map sends the ambient fundamental class to the relative fundamental class of . Under the Thom isomorphism theorem this becomes . Thus this map is multiplication by one with compatible orientations. The long exact sequence in homology givesso .
In degree two, the Thom isomorphism theorem identifies the map with intersection against . A projective line intersects the conic twice, so this map is multiplication by two. The long exact sequence in homology isIt yields and . In degree zero the relative groups vanish, so . This computes the homology of the complement of a smooth conic:The normal Euler number , the degree-two intersection map and the degree-four restriction map play different roles; distinguishing them explains why the boundary has first homology while the exterior has first homology .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 4 24F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Apply a projective linear transformation sending the first points to the coordinate pointsThe next point has every homogeneous coordinate nonzero by general linear position, so a diagonal projective transformation fixing the sends it toWrite the last point as . Again general linear position implies that every is nonzero. It also implies for : otherwise , , and the coordinate points other than would lie in the hyperplane .
Put and define the degree- homogeneous polynomialsThe associated map is a rational normal curve. It sends to , sends to , and sends to , becauseis one common nonzero scalar times . This proves existence.
For uniqueness, parametrize any rational normal curve through these points and choose a coordinate on its source so that the preimages of and are respectively and . If the preimage of is , then its th coordinate polynomial must have all the other as roots. It is thereforeThe value at is , so all are equal and may be removed by a common rescaling. The value at is , so is proportional to . Thus all are obtained from the by one common rescaling of the coordinate on . This merely reparametrizes the curve, proving uniqueness.
For , choose the monomial basis . The resulting curve is the twisted cubicIts homogeneous ideal is generated by the three quadratic matrix minorsthe minors of
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 iii Paper 102 4 Solution 2026-09-28
A vertex of a quiver is a sink when no arrow starts at . A representation of a quiver assigns a vector space to every vertex and a linear map to every arrow . A morphism is a family of linear maps such that for every arrow. The quiver has finite representation type when it has only finitely many isomorphism classes of indecomposable finite-dimensional representations.
At a sink , the Bernstein–Gelfand–Ponomarev reflection functor replacesand reverses the arrows ending at ; the new arrow maps are the kernel inclusion followed by the coordinate projections. Every representation is a direct sum of copies of the simple representation and a representation for which the displayed incoming map is surjective. On the latter representations, reflection at the resulting source, using the corresponding cokernel, is inverse up to natural isomorphism. Thus reflection gives a bijection between indecomposable representations other than on the two sides. Adding the one omitted simple representation on each side proves that reversing all arrows into a sink preserves finite representation type.
For the four-arrow star , take , , and let the four arrows have imagesAn endomorphism must preserve the first two lines, so its map on is diagonal. Preserving the third forces its diagonal entries to agree, and then all vertex maps are multiplication by that same scalar. The endomorphism ring is therefore , so this representation is a brick module and hence indecomposable. Any isomorphism between parameters preserves the first three labelled lines; the induced projective linear transformation is therefore the identity, and the fourth line gives . Since is infinite, this is an infinite family of pairwise nonisomorphic indecomposables. Hence is not of finite representation type. Repeatedly applying the reflection result to sinks or, dually, to sources shows that every orientation obtained by reversing some of its arrows also has infinite representation type.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 3 24G Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
For an algebraically closed field , the strong Hilbert Nullstellensatz says that every ideal satisfiesIts weak form says that exactly when . Now let and let be a homogeneous ideal. The affine zero set of is the affine cone over together with the origin. Hence, when the projective zero set is empty, eitheror the affine zero set is exactly the origin. In the latter case the Hilbert Nullstellensatz givesthe irrelevant ideal of projective space. Equivalently, some power is contained in . These are precisely the alternatives in the Projective Nullstellensatz.
Let be a smooth quadric surface. After a projective linear transformation, the Segre embedding identifiesChoose distinct points . The two fibresare the promised disjoint curves on a smooth quadric surface: each is a smooth projective line, and . By the Bézout theorem, any two nonempty curves in the projective plane intersect. An isomorphism of algebraic varieties preserves intersections and takes projective curves to projective curves, so these disjoint curves prove
Next let be a smooth projective curve and let be a rational map to a projective variety. At a point outside its initial domain, writeusing elements of the function field . The local ring of a smooth algebraic curve at is a discrete valuation ring. If , multiplying every coordinate by a function of valuation makes all coordinates regular at and at least one a unit there. They therefore define a morphism near . Repeating this at the finitely many missing points proves the extension of a rational map from a smooth projective curve.
Smoothness is essential. Let be the normalization of a nodal curve for a rational nodal cubic . The inverse is a rational map on the smooth locus. If it extended to a morphism , then would agree with the identity on a dense Zariski-open subset of and hence everywhere. But the two distinct points above the node would satisfya contradiction. This is the failure of rational-map extension on a singular curve.
Finally take the Fermat cubic curveand define the projective hypersurfaceBecause and have no common irreducible factor, the bihomogeneous polynomial is irreducible, so is an algebraic variety. Letbe the second coordinate projection. Every homogeneous cubic in three variables has a projective zero over , so every fibre is nonempty and is a surjective morphism. Over the fibre is the Fermat cubic curve, which is smooth and has genusOver the fibre isthe union of exactly three distinct projective lines, hence exactly three irreducible components. This is the cubic pencil with a triangular member required by the question.
Smooth quadric surface Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Over an algebraically closed field of characteristic other than two, every smooth quadric surface in becomesafter a projective linear transformation. The Segre embedding identifies it with .