A recent paper of Totaro develops a theory of $q$-ample bundles in characteristic 0. Specifically, a line bundle $L$ on $X$ is $q$-ample if for every coherent sheaf $\mathcal{ F}$ on $X$, there exists an integer $m_0$ such that $m\geq m_0$ implies $H^i(X,\mathcal{ F}\otimes \mathcal{ O}(mL))=0$ for $i>q$. We show that a line bundle $L$ on a complex projective scheme $X$ is $q$-ample if and only if the restriction of $L$ to its augmented base locus is $q$-ample. In particular, when $X$ is a variety and $L$ is big but fails to be $q$-ample, then there exists a codimension 1 subscheme $D$ of $X$ such that the restriction of $L$ to $D$ is not $q$-ample.
Categories: math.AG