Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
On a complete non-singular curve defined over the complex number field C, a stable vector bundle is ample if and only if its degree is positive [3]. On a surface, the notion of the H-stability was introduced by F. Takemoto [8] (see § 1). We have a simple numerical sufficient condition for an H-stable vector bundle on a surface S defined over C to be ample; let E be an H-stable vector bundle of rank 2 on S with Δ(E) = c1(E)2 - 4c2(E) ≧ 0, then E is ample if and only if c1(E) > 0 and c2(E) > 0, provided S is an abelian surface, a ruled surface or a hyper-elliptic surface [9]. But the assumption above concerning Δ(E) evidently seems too strong. In this paper, we restrict ourselves to the projective plane P2 and a rational ruled surface Σn defined over an algebraically closed field k of arbitrary characteristic. We shall prove a finer assertion than that of [9] for an H-stable vector bundle of rank 2 to be ample (Theorem 1 and Theorem 3). Examples show that our result is best possible though it is not a necessary condition (see Remark (1) §2).