If is a subfield of , say is a field of definition for a closed subset , if can be generated in by polynomials in coefficients. (That is, can be βdefined over β.) A closed subset of is called -closed if is defined over . The -rational points are -homomorphisms , or equivalently, -morphisms .
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Equivalently, an -structure on is an -algebra such that as -algebras.
The same closed subset may admit two different -structures. For example, admit two different -structures (with different -rational points): and .
Review: regular functions, sheaves, stalks, affine varieties and morphisms, prevarieties.
Affine -varieties are affine varieties defined over . The category of affine varieties is anti-equivalent to the category of affine algebras (finitely generated reduced -algebras).
β 1.2 products and varieties
DEF 1.2product
We can form the product of two affine varieties , by taking the maximal ideal spectrum of . This topology is finer than the usual product, which is the maximal ideal spectrum of ; intuitively, we need to allow mixed polynomial of and , for example , which is inexpressible in .
This product construction is the product in the categorical sense, and is the coproduct in the category of affine algebras. Products of prevarieties also exists in the categorical sense, defined chart by chart.
If is a prevariety, there is a diagonal and a diagonal map taking to . has the induced topology from . is a homeomorphism for all prevariety .
DEF 1.3variety
A prevariety is called a variety if is closed in .
PROP 1.4
Let be a variety and a prevariety.
If is a morphism, then its graph is closed in .
If agrees in a dense subset of , then .
Below is a useful condition for a prevariety to be a variety:
PROP 1.5
Let be a prevariety covered by finitely many affine open sets . Then is a variety, if and only if for all pairs , is also affine, and is generated by restrictions of and .
We can similarly define -varieties. The -rational points of are -morphisms .
β 1.3 projective varieties
We will denote everything projective by a .
DEF 1.6projective space
We can make into a variety as follows. Let . can be given an affine structure by assuming . is also affine, so by Proposition 1.5, is a variety.
An ideal is called homogeneous if it is generated by homogeneous polynomials. The closed sets of are the zero sets of homogeneous ideals.
Usual results for affine spaces carry over:
PROP 1.7
, the latter defined as the algebra of rational functions , where and are homogeneous with .
if and only if contains the irrelevant ideal .
is irreducible if and only if is prime.
Products of can be defined as a closed subset of some projective space. Consider , . The image of this map defines an isomorphism , where is a closed subset of , defined by the zero set of .
A projective variety is a closed subset of some , and a quasiprojective variety is an open subset of some projective variety.
β 1.4 dimension
If is any irreducible affine variety, then is an integral domain. Let be its fraction field. For any principal open set , , so .
DEF 1.8dimension
If is any irreducible general variety, then for any two affine open subsets and , by the argument above. Therefore, we can speak of , and the dimension of is defined as the transcendence degree of over .
For example, if is irreducible affine, the dimension of is the maximum number of algebraically independent elements in .
If is a proper irreducible closed subvariety of , then . If and are irreducible varieties, then . , and -dimensional varieties are all finite. For an irreducible polynomial , always has codimension .
β 1.5 a technical result
THM 1.9
Let be a morphism of varieties. Then contains a non-empty open subset of its closure .
This implies that the image of any constructible set is constructible: a set is called constructible if it is the union of locally closed sets (the intersection of an open set and a closed set).
An algebraic group is an algebraic variety which is also a group, such that multiplication and inverse are morphisms of varieties.
If the underlying variety is affine, call linear.
If is linear, let . Then defines an algebra homomorphism, the comultiplication , and defines the antipode . Roughly speaking, tells you how to split and apart when evaluating ; it turns into , so that . For example, if group operation is addition and , then , so .
The identity is a map , so it corresponds to a map , taking to . can be embedded back to , taking to the constant function . This way we get a map, the identity , which takes a function and returns a constant function . This is the algebraic equivalent of the map .
The diagonal map corresponds to a map , taking to . This is the multiplication map , . Using , , and , we can rewrite the group axioms as follows:
property
in
in
associativity
inverse
identity
The rules can be understood as follows. Like we said, does the following thing: give me a function and two variables and , I tell you how to evaluate on . So associativity is essentially saying that, give me and three variables , and , I have two equivalent ways to evaluate : first we get to know how to evaluate , and then we get to know how to evaluate , or vice versa. Inverse is essentially saying that, given a function , first split and apart: and turn into , and multiply the two part together: . This is essentially , and it asserts that this is equal to . Finally, identity is just saying that is equal to .
For two examples, is a linear algebraic group, called the additive group , and is also a linear algebraic group, called the multiplicative group or . They are examples of connected groups.
Other linear algebraic groups include: , , (diagonal), (upper-triangular), (unipotent upper-triangular), , and . is not connected when .
For an example of a non-linear algebraic group: the elliptic curve is a projective variety, with an abelian group structure.
β 2.2 some basic results
We first state some basic results we want to prove for algebraic groups, and then proceed to their proofs.
PROP 2.2
There is a unique irreducible component containing . is also the connected component of . It is a normal subgroup of of finite index, and any subgroup of finite index contains .
Therefore, irreducibility of algebraic groups is equivalent to connectedness. For this reason, we say that algebraic groups are connected rather than irreducible.
Recall that in the case of topological / Lie groups, any open neighbourhood of generates the whole group. However in Zariski topology any open set is dense (at least in that irreducible component), so things are easier here:
PROP 2.3
If is connected, then for any two open sets and in , .
We would like that operations on closed subgroups yield closed ones.
PROP 2.4
The kernel and image of an algebraic group homomorphism are closed subgroups. If , then .
PROP 2.5
The subgroup generated by closed subgroups is closed and connected.
PROP 2.6
The commutator of a closed subgroup and a connected closed subgroup is connected.
We now set out to prove them.
If and are irreducible components, then and their closure are irreducible. Therefore, . In particular is closed under multiplication and ; so is a closed subgroup. Since inner automorphisms produce homeomorphisms, , so is normal. Its cosets are components of so there are finitely many of them. This also shows that irreducible components are disjoint, so they are also connected components.
Both and are open dense, so they intersect somewhere.
LEM 2.7
If is a subgroup of , then is also a subgroup. If contains a non-empty open subset of (so is βlarge enoughβ), then is closed.
A non-example for this lemma would be .
If then . Since is closed, . So . Now let . Similar argument shows is a closed subgroup. If contains a non-empty open subset of , then , as the union of translates of that open subset, is open in . So by Proposition 2.3, and .
Inverse image of a closed set is closed. contains an open subset of (Theorem 1.9), so is closed. is connected and of finite index in .
LEM 2.8
Suppose () are irreducible varieties with morphisms , such that . Let be generated by . Let .
is connected;
there is some and , together with such that .
Assume that all occur among the βs. For let ; then and are irreducible subsets. Take such that is maximal.
Taking the inclusion maps in the first case, and (, ) in the second case.
β 2.3 -spaces
DEF 2.9-spaces
A -space is a variety on which can act.
A homogeneous space is a -space where the -action is transitive.
For , its isotropy group is and its orbit is .
In the case of Lie group actions on smooth manifolds, the orbits can be bad in general; for example, the action of on by has orbits that are neither closed nor open. In the algebraic case, things are much simpler: it turns out that a closed orbit always exists, an essential statement in the theory of algebraic groups.
THM 2.10closed orbit lemma
Orbits of lowest dimension are always closed; in particular, there exists closed orbits.
The proof roughly goes as follows. If an orbit is not closed, its boundary should be the union of other orbits and one dimension less; therefore, the orbit with minimal dimension should be a closed orbit.
An orbit is open in its closure. This is because, applying Theorem 1.9 to shows that contains a non-empty open subset of its closure. Since is the union of translates of , itself is open. Therefore, for , is closed. By the noetherian property there is a minimal ; it is a union of orbits. Suppose , then . Because is closed, , so , contradicting minimality. Therefore, is empty, and is a closed orbit.
The proof also implies that an orbit is locally closed, so it can be made into a variety and hence a homogeneous -space.
For linear algebraic groups, an especially important kind of -actions is rational representations:
DEF 2.11rational representation
A rational representation of is a homomorphism of algebraic groups . We also say is a -module.
Intuitively, a representation is rational if it is defined using polynomials. So for example the representation of by is rational, but isnβt.
Every finite group has a faithful representation in some , as follows. Right translation permutes the group elements, and therefore can be viewed as actions on ; this action is a faithful representation. For linear algebraic groups, the case is similar; every linear algebraic group has a faithful representation in some finite-dimensional , via the action by right translation. The gap here is that is generally infinite dimensional. Therefore, we need the following lemma.
If and are affine, the group action defines a pullback . Given and , tells us how to compute on . This leads to a function for every : is a function such that . reflects the action of on .
LEM 2.12
Suppose is a linear algebraic group acting on an affine variety . Suppose is a finite dimensional subspace of .
There is a finite dimensional subspace of , that contains and is stable under all .
is stable under all if and only if . If this is so, defines a rational representation .
To prove 1, we can assume and . Let . Then
so all lies in the subspace spanned by . The subspace spanned by is then finite dimensional and stable under all .
By a similar argument, if , then is -stable. Conversely, if is -stable, let be a basis of and extend it to a basis of . Suppose and . Then
and our assumption says for all . So all vanish, and .
Now, take to be the right translation: , then defines a faithful rational representation of in . Similarly, the left multiplication is a faithful rational representation of . We want to extract a finite dimensional faithful representation out of it. Recall that is generated (as an algebra) by finitely many elements; these elements span a finite dimensional subspace of , so by the previous lemma has a finite dimensional subspace that is stable under and generate (as an algebra) the whole . This is the representation we want:
THM 2.13linearization theorem
Any linear algebraic group admits an isomorphism into some closed subgroup of some .
Let be chosen as described earlier, and a basis of . Then for , and gives an algebraic group homomorphism ; Since generate as an algebra, is injective, and is a closed subgroup of .
To prove that is actually an isomorphism onto , we need surjective. is given by , . Since , is indeed surjective.
β 2.4 Jordan decomposition
Recall that an endomorphism of a vector space is semi-simple if is the direct sum of one-dimensional maps, i.e. is diagonalizable, and nilpotent if for some ; is called unipotent if is nilpotent. Under a field of positive characteristic , is unipotent if and only if for some . Also recall that a set of pairwise commuting matrices can be simultaneously upper-triangularized, and if they are also all semisimple they can be simultaneously diagonalized. The product, direct sum and tensor product of two semisimple (nilpotent, unipotent) matrices is semisimple (nilpotent, unipotent), and if and are semisimple (nilpotent) then so is .
Similar to the additive Jordan decomposition , we have a multiplicative version:
THM 2.14multiplicative Jordan decomposition
Let . Then there are unique elements such that
,
is semisimple and is unipotent,
and commutes, and
any -stable subspace or the quotient of one is also - and -stable, and interpreted in that space.
COR 2.15
If and , then and .
The importance of multiplicative Jordan decopmosition is that it can be carried over to linear algebraic groups. Recall that every linear algebraic group can be linearized as a closed subgroup of some . We have a multiplicative Jordan decomposition there. Remarkably, this decomposition is intrinsic, i.e. not depending on the particular embedding:
THM 2.16Jordan decomposition in algebraic groups
Suppose is a linear algebraic group and . There are unique elements such that
, and , , where is the right translation in the vector space ; technically we need to specify the meaning of Jordan decomposition, in particular unipotency, in infinite dimensional spaces, in terms of locally finite endomorphisms; the results are pretty much the same though.
and are natural, in the sense that for any algebraic group homomorphism , and ;
The set of unipotent elements of , , is a closed subset of . The same need not hold for semisimple elements. Also, if is an -point, then neither nor need to be an -point.
PROP 2.17
Suppose is a subgroup of consisting of unipotent matrices. Then is conjugate to a subgroup of , the group of upper-triangular matrices with ones on the diagonal.
Hence, unipotent linear algebraic groups are nilpotent, and hence solvable. Another consequence is that whenever is a rational representation of a unipotent linear algebraic group, there is a non-zero vector in fixed by all of .
PROP 2.18Kostant-Rosenlicht
Let be a unipotent linear algebraic group and and affine -space. Then all orbits of are closed.
3Section 3commutative algebraic groups
β 3.1 structure of commutative algebraic groups
We recall that every element can be written as , and that is always a closed subset of . We now see that splits cleanly into and in the case of commutative algebraic groups:
THM 3.1
Let be a commutative linear algebraic group, and let and be the subset of semisimple and unipotent elements. Then and are closed subgroups, and is the (inner) direct product .
If moreover is connected, then the same holds for and .
PROP 3.2
Let be a connected linear algebraic group of dimension one. Then is commutative, and either or .
In the latter case, if , then the elements of have order dividing .
β 3.2 diagonalizable groups and tori
DEF 3.3rational character
Let be a linear algebraic group. A homomorphism of algebraic groups is called a rational character.
The set of rational characters is denoted by . It has a natural abelian group structure, which we write additively. Characters are regular functions on so lie in , and they are linearly independent in .
A homomorphism of algebraic groups is called a cocharacter. The set of cocharacters is dentoed by , and it also have an abelian group structure, also written additively.
DEF 3.4diagonalizable tori
is called diagonalizable if is isomorphic to some closed subgroup of , the group of diagonal matrices. is called an (algebraic) torus if it is isomorphic to some .
For example, if , then which takes to the -th element off the diagonal of is a character. Monomials in serves as a basis for , so they are all characters. As a result, . A homomorphism is always of the form , so .
THM 3.5
The following conditions are equivalent:
is diagonalizable;
is a finitely generated abelian group, and its elements form a -basis of ;
any rational representation of is a direct sum of -dimensional such representations.
In this case, is isomorphic to the group algebra of , and if , then doesnβt have -torsion.
To recall, if is a finitely generated abelian group, then its group algebra is the -algebra with basis (), with multiplication . The is used solely to prevent confusing operations in and in . We have . Define homomorphisms , and . Assume has no -torsion if . For example, if where , then .
PROP 3.6
is always an affine algebra, and there is a diagonalizable linear algebraic group with , such that , and are exactly the comultiplication, antipode and identity;
There is a canonical isomorphism ;
If is a diagonalizable group, then there is a canonical isomorphism .
Since and is finite, we proved that
COR 3.7
A diagonalizable group is a direct product of a torus and a finite abelian group of order prime to . It is a torus if and only if it is connected.
PROP 3.8rigidity of diagonalizable groups
Let and be diagonalizable groups and a connected affine variety. If there is a morphism of varieties , such that for any given , is a homomorphism of algebraic groups, then is independent of .
This proposition essentially says that homomorphisms between diagonalizable groups are rigid, or cannot be deformed; in other words, behaves like a discrete set, think . As an application, recall the centralizer and the normalizer of a subgroup. They are both closed subgroups of , and .
COR 3.9
If is a diagonalizable subgroup of , then and is finite.
Now suppose is a torus. For and the map is a character , and such a map can only some monomial . We set . This defines a perfect pairing between and ; in particular is free abelian. The map defines a canonical isomorphism between abelian groups .
If is a -space, then we have a (locally finite) representation of in . For a regular character , let denote its eigenspace:
The subspaces form an -grading of :
If is a morphism we write if extends to a morphism with . If then we write . If is a -space and is a cocharacter, let be the set of such that exists. Then is the set of such that exists.
Intuitively, defines a one-parameter family of morphisms , and is those points which βconvergesβ as . For example, if , then , so is the -axis and is the -axis. Intuitively are the components without negative exponents, and are those without positive exponents.
LEM 3.10
is closed in , and is the set of fixed points under action of .
β 3.3 additive functions
DEF 3.11additive function
An additive function on a linear algebraic group is a homomorphism of algebraic groups . The additive functions form a subspace of . If is an -group then denotes the -vector space of additive functions defined over .
Assume that and is perfect, i.e. . Define a ring as a βtwistedβ polynomial ring: the underlyinngn abelian group is , while the multiplication is
where is the Frobenius isomorphism.
Left and right ideals in are all principal and is left and right noetherian. Therefore, every finitely generated left- or right--module is a direct sum of cyclic modules, either free or torsion. can then be seen as a left -module, by
If then and is an -module.
As an example, the additive -functions on are the additive polynomials in . The only such polynomials are linear combinations of monomials of the form , which form a free -module with basis .
LEM 3.12
Let be an -group.
If is connected, then the -module is torsion free.
If are elements of that are linearly independent over , then they are algebraically independent over .
β 3.4 elementary unipotent groups
DEF 3.13elementary vector groups
Say a unipotent linear algebraic group is elementary if it is abelian and, if , its elements have order dividing . is a vector group if it is isomorphic to some .
THM 3.14
The following propertie of a linear algebraic group are equivalent:
is elementary unipotent;
is a finitely generated -module and generate as an algebra the whole ;
is a vector group if , or the product of a vector group and some if .
With all the notions introduced, Proposition 3.2 implies that every connected linear algebraic group must be toral or elementary unipotent. Therefore,
COR 3.15
A connected linear algebraic group of dimension one is isomorphic to either or .
Suppose is a commutative ring, an -algebra and a left -module. An -derivation is an -linear map satisfying the Leibniz rule: . The set of derivations is denoted , and form a left -module.
If is a homomorphism of -algebras and is a -module, pullback along gives with kernel .
DEF 4.2tangent spaces
Let be an affine variety. If , define the tangent space to be the -vector space of derivations , where is isomorphic to as a ring, and viewed as a -module via .
If is a morphism of affine algebraic varieties, then pulls back to a map , denoted and called the differential of at .
LEM 4.3alternative definitions of tangent spaces
The following descriptions of tangent spaces are equivalent:
As the space of derivations .
As the dual of , by noticing derivations vanish on .
As , where is the stalk of the sheaf of regular functions at and is the residue field of . This description works for general varieties. basically, the infinitesimal / local variant of the first description
As the projective limit for affine open charts . This description works for general varieties.
The third description tells us that if is an isomorphism of onto an affine open subvariety of , then is an isomorphism.
DEF 4.4smoothness
Say is smooth at , or is a simple point of , if . is smooth or non-singular if is smooth at all points, or all points of are simple.
β 4.2 differentials, separability
Suppose is a commutative ring and a commutative -algebra. Let be the algebra multiplication map, and . is generated by elements of the form , and .
DEF 4.5
The module of differentials is defined as . This is an -module, but itβs annihilated by , so we may and shall view it as an -module, by .
If is the ring of functions over a space , then represent all functions of the form , and decodes the first-order behaviour of such functions. Denote by or the image of in , then is a derivation in .
is the universal module of -derivations of , in the sense that it is the unique (up to isomorphism) -module with a derivation such that for every -module the map , is an isomorphism of -modules.
If is an -algebra homomorphism, there is a unique homomorphism of -modules with . In this sense, the above mentioned map is natural.
LEM 4.6
If is a quotient of a polynomial algebra over , say , then generate as an -module.