Non-Commutative Resolutions of Toric Varieties

Let R be the coordinate ring of an affine toric variety. We prove, using direct elementary methods, that the endomorphism ring EndR(A), where A is the (finite) direct sum of all (isomorphism classes of) conic R-modules, has finite global dimension equal to the dimension of R. This gives a precise version, and an elementary proof, of a theorem of Spenko and Van den Bergh ˇ implying that EndR(A) has finite global dimension. Furthermore, we show that EndR(A) is a non-commutative crepant resolution if and only if the toric variety is simplicial. For toric varieties over a perfect field k of prime characteristic, we show that the ring of differential operators Dk(R) has finite global dimension.