Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 15 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For a nonzero holomorphic vector bundle on the curve, its degree of a holomorphic vector bundle and slope of a holomorphic vector bundle areWe obtain a bound independent of the particular holomorphic subbundle by fixing a Hermitian metric on a holomorphic vector bundle once and for all. Let be its Chern connection, its Chern curvature, and any positive area form on the compact Riemann surface. WriteHere is a smooth Hermitian endomorphism of . By compactness, its largest eigenvalue is bounded above by some finite constant on the whole curve.
Let be a holomorphic subbundle of positive rank , with the induced metric. Use the smooth orthogonal splitting of a vector subbundle . In this splitting the connection has block formwhere is the projected Chern connection and is the second fundamental form of a holomorphic subbundle. The latter has type : the part of preserves the holomorphic subbundle. The adjoint includes conjugation of the form factor and has type . Squaring this block matrix givesThis derives the curvature formula for a holomorphic subbundle in the column-vector convention used here. Locally write . ThenThe degree of a holomorphic vector bundle is the trace-curvature integral, since the trace is the curvature of the determinant line bundle. HenceThe last integrand is a nonnegative real two-form and is independent of the local unitary frame and coordinate. Since , the compressed trace is at most pointwise. ThereforeThis is the subbundle slope bound from ambient Chern curvature. The right side depends only on and the initially chosen metrics, and is finite. It proves the requested uniform upper bound for every positive-rank subbundle, without assuming any stability property of or using a bound that depends on .