Write , , , and . It is the quadratic cone invariant ring
where the involution negates both and . The invariant monomials have even total degree and are generated by ; reduction by proves the asserted presentation.
To verify the normal variety property, suppose is integral over . The same monic equation makes integral over . This polynomial ring is an integrally closed domain, so . Since belongs to the fraction field of , it is invariant under the involution, and hence belongs to . Thus is normal. The gradient of its equation is , so the Jacobian criterion shows that the origin is its only singular point of an algebraic variety. In particular is not smooth.
Take the prime Weil divisor and . We show that is not a Cartier divisor at . In the local ring
its prime ideal is . The quotient has dimension of a vector space over : generate it, and they are independent since while the relation has no linear term. By Nakayama lemma, cannot be generated by one element.
On a normal variety, the ideal of an effective prime Weil divisor is the divisorial ideal of functions with order at least one along that divisor and order at least zero along every other prime Weil divisor. If were a Cartier divisor at , a local defining rational function would identify this ideal with , because an integrally closed domain is the intersection of its height-one localizations at a prime ideal inside its fraction field. That would make principal, contradicting the calculation. Therefore has a nonzero class in the local divisor class group.
Now let be any linearly equivalent Weil divisor. If were outside its support of a Weil divisor, there would be an open subset containing on which is zero. On that neighbourhood would be a principal Weil divisor, hence a Cartier divisor, which is impossible. Therefore this point is unavoidable in every representative:
The argument does not assume that is effective. For comparison, because on the chart , ; the obstruction has order two, as in the Divisor class group of an A-type surface singularity.
Write and , with the lattice sums taken over nonzero lattice elements. Reindexing the normally convergent series shows that the Weierstrass elliptic function is an even function, and consequently is an odd function. Expanding near zero and cancelling the odd lattice sums gives the Laurent coefficients of the Weierstrass elliptic function
Thus the elliptic function has no pole at zero and its constant term is . By periodicity it has no poles anywhere. An entire elliptic function is bounded on a fundamental parallelogram and hence everywhere, so Liouville theorem makes it constant. This proves the Weierstrass elliptic differential equation
We first verify that the cubic is smooth, rather than presupposing it when using its group law. There are three nonzero two-torsion points of a complex torus . Oddness and periodicity imply . Since has a triple pole and no other poles on the torus, value multiplicity of an elliptic function says that these three distinct zeros exhaust its zeros and are simple. Put . Each has a double zero at , since and the zero of is simple. If with , this same function would have at least four zeros counted with multiplicity, although its only pole is double. Therefore the half-period values of the Weierstrass elliptic function are distinct. They are roots of , so all its roots are distinct and the affine curve is a smooth algebraic curve. Its projective closure is
It has the single point at infinity. The derivative with respect to of the defining homogeneous polynomial is nonzero at , proving smoothness there too.
For any finite value , value multiplicity of an elliptic function gives exactly two solutions of , counting multiplicities. Evenness supplies the pair . At a nonzero half-period these coincide and the zero is double; elsewhere they are distinct. An even elliptic function therefore descends to a meromorphic function of on the Riemann sphere. To justify descent at a half-period, put : both and are even in , and is times a nonvanishing even analytic function. The local Laurent series of is consequently meromorphic in the coordinate . At zero the same argument uses . Every meromorphic function on the Riemann sphere is a rational function, proving that even elliptic functions are rational in the Weierstrass function.
For an arbitrary elliptic function , its even part is . Its odd part divided by is an even meromorphic function, hence is with rational. We have therefore proved the elliptic function-field decomposition
Uniqueness follows by taking even and odd parts. In particular the field of elliptic functions is .
Define and elsewhere on . Periodicity makes the map well defined. Near zero, the projective chart has coordinates and , so the extension is holomorphic. The fiber description above proves injectivity: the two candidates are distinguished by unless they coincide at a half-period. It also proves surjectivity, since every occurs and the two derivatives are the two allowed values, with at a branch value.
Finally, a nonvertical line pulls back to the elliptic function , whose only pole is triple at zero. Its three zeros , counted with intersection multiplicity, satisfy modulo by the zero-pole sum of an elliptic function. On the cubic, reflection corresponds to . The chord-and-tangent group law therefore gives . Vertical lines give inverse pairs; tangencies are included through repeated zeros, and the identity cases follow from the extension at zero. This completes the Weierstrass uniformization by half-period values: is a group isomorphism.
Here is an elementary polynomial pencil with four square members argument. Suppose first that are linearly dependent. Their coprimality of polynomials then forces both to be constant. Otherwise write the four distinct members as . They are nonzero and pairwise coprime polynomials: a common nonconstant factor of two members would divide both and .
Put . At most one member of the pencil has degree of a polynomial smaller than , since cancellation of its leading coefficient determines a unique projective pair. Choose a member of minimal degree and any independent member of degree . The polynomial
is nonzero: otherwise the rational function would have zero derivative, hence would be constant in characteristic zero. Its degree is at most ; if both members have degree zero the original assumption has already failed.
Replacing this pair by any other independent pair changes only by a nonzero scalar. Since , each divides . The pairwise coprimality of polynomials therefore gives . But three members have degree , so
a contradiction. Consequently and are constant. The possibility that a member is zero was already covered by linear dependence.
To apply this to an elliptic curve, complete the square in its Weierstrass equation of an elliptic curve and work over . Nonsingularity gives three distinct roots , so the equation becomes . A nonconstant rational parametrization of an algebraic curve would have with coprime polynomials. Clearing denominators gives
The four factors are pairwise coprime polynomials. A rational function whose square is a polynomial is itself a polynomial, by comparing numerator and denominator in lowest terms. Unique factorization, and the fact that every nonzero complex constant has a square root, make each of these four factors a square in . They correspond to four distinct projective pairs. The result just proved forces to be constant, and the equation then forces to be constant as well. This proves the nonparametrizability of an elliptic curve.
For the projective-space complement, assume and choose two distinct closed points . Take the ideal sheaf of two closed points on . The codimension-two extension of regular functions on a normal variety gives
One can see this directly: on every standard affine chart of , a rational function written in lowest terms cannot have a nonconstant denominator, because an irreducible polynomial factor of the denominator would define a pole along a codimension-one hypersurface, and such a hypersurface is not removed by . The extended function is constant because every global regular function on projective space is constant. Now the short exact sequence
sends diagonally into on global sections. Its cokernel is , and the long exact sequence in sheaf cohomology injects that cokernel into . Thus
The assumption is necessary: is already affine and has no such example.
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.