Let be a very ample effective Cartier divisor on a projective scheme , and suppose is ample. Then for and sufficiently large . By uniform Serre vanishing for two ample twists, cohomology of vanishes uniformly for . The restriction sequence identifies the higher groups of and for . For fixed , large kills them by Serre vanishing for ; descend to . No vanishing is claimed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 134 1 iii b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
We prove (b)(a) by induction on dimension, using the independently proved (c)(a) argument in the next section. Work on an integral projective variety of dimension . The hypothesis is inherited by all its integral closed subvarieties. Induction therefore makes ample on every strictly lower-dimensional closed reduced subvariety, and hence on every proper closed subscheme of dimension less than , by ampleness on reduced components.
Choose an effective Cartier divisor which is a very ample hyperplane section of . Then is ample. We need a vanishing statement uniform in extra positive -twists:Here is a justification using Castelnuovo–Mumford regularity. Embed by . For each of the finitely many positive cohomology degrees , Serre vanishing for the ample bundle makes vanish for . Thus the pushed-forward sheaf is zero-regular. Persistence of regularity makes it -regular for every , giving exactly the displayed vanishing. This is the uniform Serre vanishing for two ample twists lemma. It does not assume that is ample on .
Apply the divisor restriction exact sequence to with twists . For , both neighbouring cohomology groups on vanish, soFor a fixed , sufficiently large kills the right-hand cohomology by Serre vanishing for on . The higher cohomology vanishing from an ample hyperplane restriction argument gives for all . ConsequentlyThis step is essential: divergence of a polynomial does not by itself prove that its top-degree coefficient is positive.
For large enough, . Evaluation at a closed point has a one-dimensional target, so its kernel contains a nonzero section vanishing there. We have obtained condition (c) on . Lower-dimensional subvarieties already have the same property by induction, so the next section's implication (c)(a) applies. ThusFor , higher groups with vanish automatically and the same evaluation argument starts the induction. The regularity facts used above are stated in the Stacks Project, regularity lemmas.