Criteria for -ampleness

In the noncommutative geometry of Artin, Van den Bergh, and others, the twisted homogeneous coordinate ring is one of the basic constructions. Such a ring is defined by a -ample divisor, where is an automorphism of a projective scheme . Many open questions regarding -ample divisors have remained.

We derive a relatively simple necessary and sufficient condition for a divisor on to be -ample. As a consequence, we show right and left -ampleness are equivalent and any associated noncommutative homogeneous coordinate ring must be noetherian and have finite, integral GK-dimension. We also characterize which automorphisms yield a -ample divisor.