Proj as a set Let S be a commutative
graded ring, whereS = \bigoplus_{i \ge 0} S_iis the
direct sum decomposition associated with the gradation. The
irrelevant ideal of S is the
ideal of elements of positive degreeS_+ = \bigoplus_{i > 0} S_i .We say an ideal is
homogeneous if it is generated by homogeneous elements. Then, as a set,\operatorname{Proj} S = \{P \subseteq S \text{ homogeneous prime ideal, } S_+ \not\subseteq P \}. For brevity we will sometimes write X for \operatorname{Proj} S.
Proj as a topological space We may define a
topology, called the
Zariski topology, on \operatorname{Proj} S by defining the closed sets to be those of the form :V(a) = \{ p \in \operatorname{Proj} S \mid a \subseteq p \}, where a is a
homogeneous ideal of S. As in the case of affine schemes it is quickly verified that the V(a) form the closed sets of a
topology on X. Indeed, if (a_i)_{i\in I} are a family of ideals, then we have \bigcap V(a_i) = V \left(\sum a_i\right) and if the indexing set
I is finite, then \bigcup V(a_i) = V \left(\prod a_i\right). Equivalently, we may take the open sets as a starting point and define : D(a) = \{ p \in \operatorname{Proj} S \mid a \not\subseteq p \}. A common shorthand is to denote D(Sf) by D(f), where Sf is the
ideal generated by f. For any ideal a, the sets D(a) and V(a) are complementary, and hence the same proof as before shows that the sets D(a) form a topology on \operatorname{Proj} S. The advantage of this approach is that the sets D(f), where f ranges over all homogeneous elements of the ring S, form a
base for this topology, which is an indispensable tool for the analysis of \operatorname{Proj} S, just as the analogous fact for the spectrum of a ring is likewise indispensable.
Proj as a scheme We also construct a
sheaf on \operatorname{Proj} S, called the “structure sheaf” as in the affine case, which makes it into a
scheme. As in the case of the Spec construction there are many ways to proceed: the most direct one, which is also highly suggestive of the construction of
regular functions on a projective variety in classical algebraic geometry, is the following. For any open set U of \operatorname{Proj} S (which is by definition a set of homogeneous prime ideals of
S not containing S_+) we define the ring O_X(U) to be the set of all functions : f \colon U \to \bigcup_{p \in U} S_{(p)} (where S_{(p)} denotes the subring of the
ring of fractions S_p consisting of fractions of homogeneous elements of the same degree) such that for each prime ideal p of U: • f(p) is an element of S_{(p)}; • There exists an open subset V \subseteq U containing p and homogeneous elements s,t of
S of the same degree such that for each prime ideal q of V: • t is not in q; • f(q) = s/t It follows immediately from the definition that the O_X(U) form a sheaf of rings O_X on \operatorname{Proj} S, and it may be shown that the pair (\operatorname{Proj} S, O_X) is in fact a scheme (this is accomplished by showing that each of the open subsets D(f) is in fact an affine scheme).
The sheaf associated to a graded module The essential property of
S for the above construction was the ability to form localizations S_{(p)} for each prime ideal p of S. This property is also possessed by any
graded module M over
S, and therefore with the appropriate minor modifications the preceding section constructs for any such M a sheaf, denoted \tilde{M}, of O_X-modules on \operatorname{Proj} S. This sheaf is
quasicoherent by construction. If
S is generated by finitely many elements of degree 1 (e.g. a
polynomial ring or a homogenous quotient of it), all quasicoherent sheaves on \operatorname{Proj} S arise from graded modules by this construction. The corresponding graded module is not unique.
The twisting sheaf of Serre A special case of the sheaf associated to a graded module is when we take
M to be
S itself with a different grading: namely, we let the degree d elements of M be the degree (d+1) elements of
S, soM_d = S_{d+1}and denote M = S(1). We then obtain \tilde{M} as a quasicoherent sheaf on \operatorname{Proj} S, denoted O_X(1) or simply \mathcal{O}(1), called the
twisting sheaf of
Serre. It can be checked that \mathcal{O}(1) is in fact an
invertible sheaf. One reason for the utility of \mathcal{O}(1) is that it recovers the algebraic information of
S that was lost when, in the construction of O_X, we passed to fractions of degree zero. In the case Spec
A for a ring
A, the global sections of the structure sheaf form
A itself, whereas the global sections of \mathcal{O}_X here form only the degree-zero elements of
S. If we define : \mathcal{O}(n) = \bigotimes_{i = 1}^n \mathcal{O}(1) then each \mathcal{O}(n) contains the degree-n information about S, denoted S_n, and taken together they contain all the grading information that was lost. Likewise, for any sheaf of graded \mathcal{O}_X-modules N we define : N(n) = N \otimes \mathcal{O}(n) and expect this “twisted” sheaf to contain grading information about
N. In particular, if N is the sheaf associated to a graded S-module M we likewise expect it to contain lost grading information about
M. This suggests, though erroneously, that
S can in fact be reconstructed from these sheaves; as\bigoplus_{n \geq 0 } \Gamma(X,\mathcal{O}_X(n)).However, this is true in the case that
S is a polynomial ring, below. This situation is to be contrasted with the fact that the
Spec functor is adjoint to the
global sections functor in the category of
locally ringed spaces.
Projective n-space If
A is a ring, we define projective
n-space over A to be the
scheme :\mathbb{P}^n_A = \operatorname{Proj} A[x_0,\ldots, x_n]. The grading on the polynomial ring S=A[x_0,\ldots, x_n] is defined by letting each x_i have degree one and every element of
A, degree zero. Comparing this to the definition of \mathcal{O}(1), above, we see that the sections of \mathcal{O}(1) are in fact linear homogeneous polynomials, generated by the x_i themselves. This suggests another interpretation of \mathcal{O}(1), namely as the sheaf of “coordinates” for \operatorname{Proj} S, since the x_i are literally the coordinates for projective n-space. == Examples of Proj ==