Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 19 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
A holomorphic line bundle is a complex rank-one bundle locally trivialized over holomorphic coordinate opens, with nowhere-zero holomorphic transition functions. A local holomorphic section has a holomorphic coefficient in a holomorphic local frame. Let be a smooth positive Hermitian metric on its fibres. A Chern connection is a connection compatible with whose part is the bundle's Dolbeault operator.
Fix the Hermitian-product convention linear in the first variable and a nonvanishing holomorphic local frame . Put and write . Compatibility with the holomorphic structure forces . Metric compatibility givesso taking its part determines uniquely:Define the connection by this formula. To check it exists globally, change frame to for a nonzero holomorphic function . Then andwhich is exactly the connection transformation law obtained from . Hence the local connections glue. The formula and its conjugate give metric compatibility, and gives the required holomorphic structure. Since either condition already forced this unique formula in every frame, existence and uniqueness are proved.
For a line bundle, the curvature form of a connection is , as the scalar one-form satisfies . The local formula for the Chern connection on a line bundle therefore givesThis formula uses a nowhere-zero local holomorphic section; arbitrary sections with zeros are not frames there. It has type , is -closed and satisfies , so is a real -form. The transformation calculation makes its frame independence explicit.
For two metrics, their ratio is a global positive smooth function, since the common frame factors cancel. The curvature difference of two Chern connections isEach curvature is -closed, and the difference has a global primitive for . ThusThis is equality in Dolbeault cohomology, rather than merely equality in de Rham cohomology; the displayed primitive proves precisely that distinction.
Finally let be a nowhere-zero smooth section of . In this global smooth trivialization write with a global -form . The holomorphic structure has . Its Leibniz rule givessince a scalar one-form wedges with itself to zero. The hypothesis makes for a global smooth complex function . ThenThe exponential never vanishes. Therefore is a nowhere-zero holomorphic section, proving smoothly trivial holomorphic line bundles when H01 vanishes constructively, without a compactness assumption.