Topic summary
Divisor class
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Divisor (algebraic geometry).
Divisor class group
The Weil divisor class group Cl(X) is the quotient of Div(X) by the subgroup of all principal Weil divisors. Two divisors are said to be linearly equivalent if their difference is principal, so the divisor class group is the group of divisors modulo linear equivalence. For a variety X of dimension n over a field, the divisor class group is a Chow group; namely, Cl(X) is the Chow group CHn−1(X) of (n−1)-dimensional cycles.