I'm a bit stuck, and I'm hoping someone can help me out. I have a vector bundle $E$ on an algebraic curve (the ones I am interested in are holomorphic, but I'm sure that doesn't matter so much for the purposes of this question...), and I also have an endomorphism $\Psi\in\Gamma(\mbox{End}(E)).$


How **in general** does one compute the determinant of $\Psi$? If $E$ splits as a sum of rank-1 bundles then so too does the endomorphism bundle associated with $E$, and then it's obvious to me how to compute the determinant in that case. But, when $E$ is more general, what is an invariant way to go about computing the determinant? (I'm looking for something similar to the invariant way of computing the trace, for which I can rewrite $\Psi$ as a map $E\otimes E^\*\rightarrow\mathcal{O}$ and then take the image of the identity morphism of $E$.)


I'm sure there is a quick answer to this, that I am just not seeing. Any help is greatly appreciated.



Endomorphisms of vector bundles
The determinant of $\Psi$ is the top exterior power $\bigwedge^{\mathrm{rk}(E)}\Psi$ (identifying endomorphisms of the line bundle $\bigwedge^{\mathrm{rk}(E)}E$ with functions).


