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Sheaf Operations Exactness Ringed Spaces and Module Pullback - Examples
1 · Prerequisites
- Abelian Categories
- Binary Operations, Monoids, Groups and Subgroups
- Cardinal Arithmetic, Cofinality and the Alephs
- Categories, Functors and Natural Transformations
- Construction of the Natural Numbers
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Cauchy Sequences
- Construction of the Real Numbers via Dedekind Cuts
- Cosets, Index and Lagrange's Theorem
- Countability and Uncountability
- Exactness and the Member Calculus
- Finite Counting, Factorials and Binomial Coefficients
- Foundations of the Real Numbers for Analysis
- Free Modules, Exact Sequences, Projective and Injective Modules
- Group Homomorphisms and the Isomorphism Theorems
- Ideals, Quotient Rings and the Isomorphism Theorems for Rings
- Limits and Colimits
- Modules, Submodules, Quotient Modules and the Isomorphism Theorems
- Normal Subgroups and Quotient Groups
- Order, Zorn's Lemma, and the Axiom of Choice
- Ordinal Arithmetic and the First Uncountable Ordinal
- Ordinals, Cardinals, and Transfinite Recursion
- Preadditive and Additive Categories and Biproducts
- Presheaves Sheaves Stalks and Sheafification
- Relations, Functions, and Quotients
- Rings, Subrings, Integral Domains and Fields
- Set Theory Beyond Choice: Recorded, Not Proved Here
- Sheaf Operations Exactness Ringed Spaces and Module Pullback
- Suprema and Infima
- Tensor Products of Modules
- The Field of Fractions and Localisation
- The ZFC Axioms and the Basic Set Constructions
- Topological Spaces and Continuity
2 · Summary
These examples isolate the first places where the new operations genuinely matter. Open immersions separate from , skyscraper sheaves make stalkwise exactness visible, and the circle quotient example shows why sheafified cokernels are necessary.
The later examples keep the ringed-space block concrete. Continuous functions provide a locally ringed model, pullback is checked on free modules, and transition functions glue the basic line-bundle prototype.
3 · Logical flowchart
4 · Definitions, theorems and proofs
None yet.
5 · Examples, counterexamples and false statements
Direct image along an open immersion is restriction-compatible intersection
Example
Let be an open immersion, and let be a sheaf on . Then for every open set one has
Facts & Assumptions
Given: An open inclusion , a sheaf on , and an open set .
Direct image is computed by preimage opens: (Direct image of a sheaf along a continuous map).
Restriction to an open subspace is inverse image along the inclusion (Restriction of a sheaf to an open subspace).
Verification
Because is the inclusion of into , one has .
Substituting step 1.1 into [F1] gives This is exactly the announced formula, and it is compatible with the restriction interpretation in [F2].
Extension by zero can be strictly smaller than direct image on a punctured interval
Statement refuted
For every open immersion and every sheaf of abelian groups on , one has .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The open immersion and the constant sheaf on .
For an open immersion, direct image is computed by intersection: (Direct image along an open immersion is restriction-compatible intersection).
Extension by zero consists of sections whose support is closed in the test open (Extension by zero for abelian sheaves on an open subspace).
Counterexample
By [F1], the global section set of is because has two connected components. Let be the section that is on both components.
The germ of is nonzero at every point of , so its support is all of . But is not closed in , since its closure contains . Therefore [F2] shows that .
Thus lies in but not in , so the two sheaves are not equal. This refutes the statement.
A short exact sequence of abelian groups gives a short exact sequence of skyscraper sheaves
Example
Let
be a short exact sequence of abelian groups, and let . Then applying the skyscraper construction at gives a short exact sequence of sheaves
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A short exact sequence of abelian groups and a point .
A stalk is the colimit of sections over neighbourhoods of the point, and for the skyscraper sheaf those section groups are on neighbourhoods containing and on neighbourhoods omitting (The stalk of a presheaf at a point, A skyscraper sheaf of abelian groups at a point).
Exactness of a sequence of abelian sheaves is equivalent to exactness on every stalk (A sequence of abelian sheaves is exact exactly when it is exact on every stalk).
Short exactness of the displayed sheaf sequence is exactness in the sense of sheaves (Exact sequences of sheaves).
Verification
Fix a point . If every neighbourhood of contains , then [F1] shows that each stalk in the displayed skyscraper sequence is the original group at , so the stalk sequence is exactly If some neighbourhood of omits , then every smaller neighbourhood also omits , so [F1] makes all three stalks equal to and the stalk sequence is In either case the stalk sequence is exact.
The stalk sequence is therefore exact at every point, so [L1] implies that the skyscraper sequence is exact as a sequence of sheaves. By [L2], this is exactly the claimed short exact sequence of skyscraper sheaves.
Global sections need not preserve surjections
Statement refuted
If is an epimorphism of sheaves of abelian groups on a space , then the induced map on global sections
is always surjective.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The circle .
Global sections need not preserve epimorphisms in general (Global sections are left exact but need not preserve epimorphisms).
Counterexample
Let be the sheaf of continuous real-valued functions on , and let be the subsheaf of locally constant integer-valued functions. Let be the sheafification of the presheaf quotient . Every germ of is represented locally by a continuous function, so the canonical map is locally surjective and hence an epimorphism of sheaves.
Cover the circle by the two arcs and . Choose continuous angle functions and with . Their quotient classes agree on , because the difference is locally constant integer-valued there. Thus they glue to a section . If came from a global continuous real function , then would be an integer-valued continuous function on the connected set , hence constant. On the two connected components of this would force the same constant difference to be both and , which is impossible. So is not surjective.
Therefore an epimorphism of sheaves can fail to become surjective on global sections. This is exactly the phenomenon asserted in [F1], so the statement is refuted.
Continuous real-valued functions make a space into a locally ringed space
Example
For every topological space , the sheaf of continuous real-valued functions makes into a locally ringed space.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A topological space .
A ringed space is a space equipped with a sheaf of rings (A ringed space).
Stalks are germs of neighbourhood sections (The stalk of a presheaf at a point).
A locally ringed space is a ringed space whose stalks are local rings (A locally ringed space, A local ring is a nonzero commutative ring with a unique maximal ideal).
Verification
The usual restriction of continuous functions makes a sheaf of commutative rings on , so [F1] gives a ringed space .
Fix . By [F2], the stalk consists of germs of continuous real-valued functions near . The germs vanishing at form an ideal . If a germ is not in , it has a representative with , so continuity makes nonzero on a smaller neighbourhood of ; hence is continuous there and defines an inverse germ. Therefore the nonunits are exactly the germs in , so is the unique maximal ideal. Thus is a local ring, and [L1] shows that is locally ringed.
A morphism of ringed spaces need not be a morphism of locally ringed spaces
Statement refuted
Every morphism of ringed spaces between locally ringed spaces is automatically a morphism of locally ringed spaces.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A field , the local ring , and the field .
A morphism of ringed spaces between one-point spaces is exactly a ring map between their stalk rings (Morphisms of ringed spaces).
A morphism of locally ringed spaces must induce local maps on stalks (Morphisms of locally ringed spaces).
A local ring has a unique maximal ideal (A local ring is a nonzero commutative ring with a unique maximal ideal).
Counterexample
Regard and as one-point ringed spaces. The assignment defines a ring homomorphism , so by [F1] it defines a morphism of ringed spaces
The unique maximal ideal of is by [L1], while the unique maximal ideal of the field is . Under the stalk map , the element goes to the nonzero element , hence to a unit of . Therefore the image of is not contained in , so the stalk map is not local. By [F2], the morphism is not a morphism of locally ringed spaces.
This gives a morphism of ringed spaces between locally ringed spaces that is not locally ringed. The statement is false.
Pullback carries a free module to the corresponding free module
Example
Let
be a morphism of ringed spaces. For every integer , one has a canonical isomorphism
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A morphism of ringed spaces and an integer .
Pullback is defined by (Pullback of a module along a morphism of ringed spaces).
Pullback is a left adjoint and therefore preserves finite coproducts (Pullback of modules is left adjoint to pushforward).
Verification
The sheaf is the finite direct sum of copies of , with the case giving the zero sheaf. Since [L1] makes a left adjoint, it preserves these finite direct sums. Thus
Applying [F1] to gives because tensoring a module over a ring with the ring itself leaves the module unchanged. Substituting this into step 1.1 yields
Units satisfying the cocycle law glue local rank-one free modules into a line bundle
Example
Let be a ringed space with an open cover . Suppose that for each pair there is a unit
satisfying on triple overlaps. Then the free rank-one modules glue to a line bundle on .
Facts & Assumptions
Given: A ringed space , an open cover , and units satisfying the displayed cocycle rules.
An -module is a sheaf with compatible module structures on every open set (Modules on a ringed space).
A gluing datum is given by overlap isomorphisms satisfying identity and cocycle conditions (A gluing datum for sheaves on an open cover).
Compatible local sheaves glue uniquely up to unique isomorphism (Compatible local sheaves glue uniquely up to unique isomorphism).
Verification
On , define Because is a unit, is an isomorphism of -modules, and the rules for the are exactly the identity and cocycle conditions of [F2].
By [L1], the local free rank-one modules glue to an -module on with for every . Therefore is locally free of rank one, i.e. a line bundle.
The objectwise cokernel presheaf can fail to be a sheaf
Statement refuted
For a morphism of sheaves of abelian groups, the objectwise cokernel presheaf is automatically a sheaf.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: The circle , the sheaf of continuous real-valued functions, and the subsheaf of locally constant integer-valued functions.
Cokernel sheaves are obtained by sheafifying the objectwise cokernel presheaf (Kernel sheaves are objectwise, while cokernels and images are sheafified).
Counterexample
Let be the presheaf cokernel of the inclusion , so for each open . Cover by the arcs and , and choose continuous angle functions and with . On , the difference is locally constant integer-valued, so the classes and agree on the overlap.
If these local classes came from a global class , then on each arc the difference would be integer-valued and continuous, hence constant because is connected. On the two connected components of , this would force the same constant difference to be both and , which is impossible. Therefore the compatible local classes of step 1.1 do not glue in the presheaf .
So the objectwise cokernel presheaf is not a sheaf. By [F1], this is exactly why one sheafifies it to obtain the true cokernel sheaf. The statement is false.
Sources
- The Stacks Project, Section 6.21
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, Exercise 2.7.D
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, nearby discussion around Section 2.7
- The Stacks Project, Section 6.31
- The Stacks Project, Definition 6.27.1 and Section 17.3
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, Example 2.2.12 and Exercise 2.6.D
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, Exercise 2.6.F
- The Stacks Project, Section 17.3
- The Stacks Project, Example 6.25.2 and Section 26.2
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, Example 2.2.13
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, Exercise 6.2.E
- The Stacks Project, Section 26.2
- The Stacks Project, Section 6.26
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, Chapter 6
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, Section 2.5.D
- The Stacks Project, Section 26.14
- Ravi Vakil, The Rising Sea, Proposition 2.6.1