Communications of the
Korean Mathematical Society CKMS

For a nef and big divisor $D$ on a smooth projective surface $S$, the inequality $h^0(S,\mathcal O_S(D))\leq D^2+2$ is well known. For a nef and big canonical divisor $K_S$, there is a better inequality $h^0(S,\mathcal O_S(K_S))\leq \frac{1}{2}{K_S}^2+2$ which is called the Noether inequality. We investigate an inequality $h^0(S,\mathcal O_S(D))\leq \frac{1}{2}D^2+2$ like Clifford theorem in the case of a curve. We show that this inequality holds except some cases. We show the existence of a counter example for this inequality. We prove also the base-locus freeness of the linear system in the exceptional cases.

Keywords: linear system, Noether inequality, nef and big divisor

MSC numbers: 14E05, 14J99