Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 13 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For an affine variety , one construction defines as the functions which locally have the form , where are elements of the coordinate ring and does not vanish on the neighbourhood in question. Restrictions are restrictions of functions, and locality gives the sheaf axioms. In particularThe second formula identifies its local rings.
In the classical convention, an algebraic variety over is an irreducible ringed space with a sheaf of -valued functions, admitting a finite open cover by spaces isomorphic to affine varieties, and satisfying the separated variety condition that its diagonal is closed in . Its topology is Noetherian. One can instead allow reducible reduced varieties; the arguments below still work with the denominator-clearing version of the localization argument. A morphism of varieties is a continuous map whose pullback takes local regular functions to regular functions, equivalently a morphism of locally ringed -spaces. The maps on local rings are local because a function nonzero at the image point stays nonzero at the source point.
An affine variety supplies its own finite affine cover, is Noetherian, and is separated: its diagonal in is cut out by the differences of corresponding coordinates. A regular map between affine varieties pulls coordinate functions back to regular functions. It is continuous because the inverse image of any polynomial zero set is the zero set of the pulled-back regular functions; on affine charts such zero sets are closed. Pulling back a locally represented fraction gives a regular fraction wherever its denominator is nonzero. Hence a regular map is a morphism of varieties in this definition.
For a morphism which is an isomorphism over each member of an open cover of , every fibre contains exactly one point. Thus is bijective. Its inverse is continuous and regular on every , since there it is the given inverse of the local isomorphism. These inverses agree on overlaps, being inverses of the same map. They glue to a global inverse morphism of varieties. Therefore being an isomorphism is local on the target.
Let , and let be affine with coordinate ring . Given a -algebra homomorphism , choose a presentation . The maplands in because all the equations in become zero functions. Its coordinates are global regular functions, so it is a morphism on every affine chart of , and therefore globally. On a target neighbourhood where a fraction is defined its pullback is , proving that the induced map on global sections is exactly . This also proves independence of the chosen generators and uniqueness. This is the affine-target adjunction for varieties.
For , the natural map sends to that regular function. In the irreducible convention, if , is dense, so this map is injective: a global regular function vanishing there vanishes everywhere. Cover by finitely many affine charts . A section on restricts on to an element of . A common power clears all these finitely many denominators. The resulting regular sections on agree on the dense principal open in each overlap, hence agree there altogether and glue to a global section . Thus . If , both sides are the zero ring of sections on the empty open. ConsequentlyThis is localization of global sections on a principal open. For reduced reducible varieties, equality on a principal open instead means that a sufficiently large power of annihilates the difference; finitely many charts and overlap refinements allow one common extra power. The same denominator-clearing proof then gives the stated localization isomorphism without a density assumption.
Now suppose in and every is affine. Each is a finitely generated -algebra. Select finitely many generators, writing them as . Let be the -subalgebra generated by all , all , and all . It is finitely generated, andThe inclusion from left to right is immediate, while the chosen generators give the reverse inclusion. This construction does not assume that was finitely generated in advance.
The reduced algebra is the coordinate ring of an affine variety (irreducible when is). The map produces by the preceding construction. The sets cover , since their functions generate the unit ideal already in . Their inverse images are , and on them the map is the isomorphism corresponding to . The target-local argument above now provesThis is affineness from a unit-ideal principal affine cover. The printed sets are ; the missing index in the TeX aid is not a different hypothesis.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 16 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For , the Čech cochain complex has groupsTerms 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 isomorphismFor 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. Thereforeis 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, provingFinally 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 isExplicitly, 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.