ALGEBRAIC CURVES An Introduction to Algebraic Geometry WILLIAM FULTON January 28, 2008 Preface Third Preface, 2008 This text has been out of print for several years, with the author holding copy- rights. Since I continue to hear from young algebraic geometers who used this as their first text, I am glad now to make this edition available without charge to anyone interested. I am most grateful to Kwankyu Lee for making a careful LaTeX version, which was the basis of this edition; thanks also to Eugene Eisenstein for help with the graphics. As in 1989, I have managed to resist making sweeping changes. I thank all who have sent corrections to earlier versions, especially Grzegorz Bobi´nski for the most recent and thorough list. It is inevitable that this conversion has introduced some new errors, and I and future readers will be grateful if you will send any errors you find to me at [email protected]. Second Preface, 1989 When this book first appeared, there were few texts available to a novice in mod- ern algebraic geometry. Since then many introductory treatises have appeared, in- cluding excellent texts by Shafarevich, Mumford, Hartshorne, Griffiths-Harris, Kunz, Clemens, Iitaka, Brieskorn-Knörrer, and Arbarello-Cornalba-Griffiths-Harris. The past two decades have also seen a good deal of growth in our understanding of the topics covered in this text: linear series on curves, intersection theory, and the Riemann-Roch problem. It has been tempting to rewrite the book to reflect this progress, but it does not seem possible to do so without abandoning its elementary character and destroying its original purpose: to introduce students with a little al- gebra background to a few of the ideas of algebraic geometry and to help them gain some appreciation both for algebraic geometry and for origins and applications of many of the notions of commutative algebra. If working through the book and its exercises helps prepare a reader for any of the texts mentioned above, that will be an added benefit. i ii PREFACE First Preface, 1969 Although algebraic geometry is a highly developed and thriving field of mathe- matics, it is notoriously difficult for the beginner to make his way into the subject. There are several texts on an undergraduate level that give an excellent treatment of the classical theory of plane curves, but these do not prepare the student adequately for modern algebraic geometry. On the other hand, most books with a modern ap- proach demand considerable background in algebra and topology, often the equiv- alent of a year or more of graduate study. The aim of these notes is to develop the theory of algebraic curves from the viewpoint of modern algebraic geometry, but without excessive prerequisites. We have assumed that the reader is familiar with some basic properties of rings, ideals, and polynomials, such as is often covered in a one-semester course in mod- ern algebra; additional commutative algebra is developed in later sections. Chapter 1 begins with a summary of the facts we need from algebra. The rest of the chapter is concerned with basic properties of affine algebraic sets; we have given Zariski’s proof of the important Nullstellensatz. The coordinate ring, function field, and local rings of an affine variety are studied in Chapter 2. As in any modern treatment of algebraic geometry, they play a funda- mental role in our preparation. The general study of affine and projective varieties is continued in Chapters 4 and 6, but only as far as necessary for our study of curves. Chapter 3 considers affine plane curves. The classical definition of the multiplic- ity of a point on a curve is shown to depend only on the local ring of the curve at the point. The intersection number of two plane curves at a point is characterized by its properties, and a definition in terms of a certain residue class ring of a local ring is shown to have these properties. Bézout’s Theorem and Max Noether’s Fundamen- tal Theorem are the subject of Chapter 5. (Anyone familiar with the cohomology of projective varieties will recognize that this cohomology is implicit in our proofs.) In Chapter 7 the nonsingular model of a curve is constructed by means of blow- ing up points, and the correspondence between algebraic function fields on one variable and nonsingular projective curves is established. In the concluding chapter the algebraic approach of Chevalley is combined with the geometric reasoning of Brill and Noether to prove the Riemann-Roch Theorem. These notes are from a course taught to Juniors at Brandeis University in 1967– 68. The course was repeated (assuming all the algebra) to a group of graduate stu- dents during the intensive week at the end of the Spring semester. We have retained an essential feature of these courses by including several hundred problems. The re- sults of the starred problems are used freely in the text, while the others range from exercises to applications and extensions of the theory. From Chapter 3 on, k denotes a fixed algebraically closed field. Whenever con- venient (including without comment many of the problems) we have assumed k to be of characteristic zero. The minor adjustments necessary to extend the theory to arbitrary characteristic are discussed in an appendix. Thanks are due to Richard Weiss, a student in the course, for sharing the task of writing the notes. He corrected many errors and improved the clarity of the text. Professor Paul Monsky provided several helpful suggestions as I taught the course. iii “Je n’ai jamais été assez loin pour bien sentir l’application de l’algèbre à la géométrie. Je n’ai mois point cette manière d’opérer sans voir ce qu’on fait, et il me sembloit que résoudre un probleme de géométrie par les équations, c’étoit jouer un air en tour- nant une manivelle. La premiere fois que je trouvai par le calcul que le carré d’un binôme étoit composé du carré de chacune de ses parties, et du double produit de l’une par l’autre, malgré la justesse de ma multiplication, je n’en voulus rien croire jusqu’à ce que j’eusse fai la figure. Ce n’étoit pas que je n’eusse un grand goût pour l’algèbre en n’y considérant que la quantité abstraite; mais appliquée a l’étendue, je voulois voir l’opération sur les lignes; autrement je n’y comprenois plus rien.” Les Confessions de J.-J. Rousseau iv PREFACE Contents Preface i 1 Affine Algebraic Sets 1 1.1 Algebraic Preliminaries . 1 1.2 Affine Space and Algebraic Sets . 4 1.3 The Ideal of a Set of Points . 5 1.4 The Hilbert Basis Theorem . 6 1.5 Irreducible Components of an Algebraic Set . 7 1.6 Algebraic Subsets of the Plane . 9 1.7 Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz . 10 1.8 Modules; Finiteness Conditions . 12 1.9 Integral Elements . 14 1.10 Field Extensions . 15 2 Affine Varieties 17 2.1 Coordinate Rings . 17 2.2 Polynomial Maps . 18 2.3 Coordinate Changes . 19 2.4 Rational Functions and Local Rings . 20 2.5 Discrete Valuation Rings . 22 2.6 Forms....................................... 24 2.7 Direct Products of Rings . 25 2.8 Operations with Ideals . 25 2.9 Ideals with a Finite Number of Zeros . 26 2.10 Quotient Modules and Exact Sequences . 27 2.11 Free Modules . 29 3 Local Properties of Plane Curves 31 3.1 Multiple Points and Tangent Lines . 31 3.2 Multiplicities and Local Rings . 34 3.3 Intersection Numbers . 36 v vi CONTENTS 4 Projective Varieties 43 4.1 Projective Space . 43 4.2 Projective Algebraic Sets . 44 4.3 Affine and Projective Varieties . 48 4.4 Multiprojective Space . 50 5 Projective Plane Curves 53 5.1 Definitions . 53 5.2 Linear Systems of Curves . 55 5.3 Bézout’s Theorem . 57 5.4 Multiple Points . 59 5.5 Max Noether’s Fundamental Theorem . 60 5.6 Applications of Noether’s Theorem . 62 6 Varieties, Morphisms, and Rational Maps 67 6.1 The Zariski Topology . 67 6.2 Varieties ..................................... 69 6.3 Morphisms of Varieties . 70 6.4 Products and Graphs . 73 6.5 Algebraic Function Fields and Dimension of Varieties . 75 6.6 Rational Maps . 77 7 Resolution of Singularities 81 7.1 Rational Maps of Curves . 81 7.2 Blowing up a Point in A2 ............................ 82 7.3 Blowing up Points in P2 ............................ 86 7.4 Quadratic Transformations . 87 7.5 Nonsingular Models of Curves . 92 8 Riemann-Roch Theorem 97 8.1 Divisors . 97 8.2 The Vector Spaces L(D) ............................ 99 8.3 Riemann’s Theorem . 101 8.4 Derivations and Differentials . 104 8.5 Canonical Divisors . 106 8.6 Riemann-Roch Theorem . 108 A Nonzero Characteristic 113 B Suggestions for Further Reading 115 C Notation 117 Chapter 1 Affine Algebraic Sets 1.1 Algebraic Preliminaries This section consists of a summary of some notation and facts from commuta- tive algebra. Anyone familiar with the italicized terms and the statements made here about them should have sufficient background to read the rest of the notes. When we speak of a ring, we shall always mean a commutative ring with a mul- tiplicative identity. A ring homomorphism from one ring to another must take the multiplicative identity of the first ring to that of the second. A domain, or integral domain, is a ring (with at least two elements) in which the cancellation law holds. A field is a domain in which every nonzero element is a unit, i.e., has a multiplicative inverse. Z will denote the domain of integers, while Q, R, and C will denote the fields of rational, real, complex numbers, respectively.