Diophantine approximation and abelian varieties. Introductory lectures. Papers of the conference, held in Soesterberg, Netherlands, April 12-16, 1992 (Q1313410)

These lecture notes consist of thirteen lectures given by different speakers on an instructional conference for Ph. D. students in number theory and algebraic geometry. The intention of this conference was to provide the participating students with some deeper acquaintance with each other's fields of research, and that by presenting a complete proof of the famous theorem 1 in \textit{G. Faltings}' recent paper in Ann. Math., II. Ser. 133, No. 3, 549-576 (1991; Zbl 0734.14007). Faltings' theorem, which gives an affirmative answer to a generalization of Mordell's conjecture, was predicted by S. Lang and A. Weil a long time ago. Its statement is the following one: Let \(A\) be an abelian variety over a number field \(k\) and let \(X\) be a subvariety of \(A\) which, over some algebraic closure of \(k\), does not contain any positive-dimensional abelian variety. Then the set of rational points of \(X\) is finite. Faltings' proof of this long-standing conjecture is an ingenious generalization of P. Vojta's proof of Mordell's conjecture and provides an enlightening example for the recently discovered close interplay between the concepts and methods of modern algebraic geometry and those of classical diophantine analysis in number theory. The thirteen lectures contained in this volume offer both a systematic introduction to Faltings' theorem and a detailed proof of it, followed by some applications and consequences. This comprehensive account of Faltings' theorem includes profound discussions of all the basic concepts, methods and results from diophantine approximation theory and diophantine algebraic geometry, which are utilized for the proof of the main result. -- Thus this collection of papers, which all together form a didactic unit, represents a perfect, self-contained introduction to Faltings' recent spectacular results and its proof. As to the prerequisites, it is only assumed that the reader is sufficiently familiar with the basics of elementary algebraic number theory and the fundamental concepts of modern algebraic geometry (schemes, morphisms, sheaves, and sheaf cohomology), as they can be found in most standard textbooks on these subjects. The articles of this volume will be reviewed individually. Indexed articles: \textit{Beukers, Frits}, Diophantine equations and approximation, 1-11 [Zbl 0811.14021] \textit{Tijdeman, Rob}, Diophantine approximation and its applications, 13-20 [Zbl 0812.11038] \textit{Tijdeman, Rob}, Roth's theorem, 21-30 [Zbl 0812.11041] \textit{Evertse, Jan-Hendrik}, The Subspace Theorem of W. M. Schmidt, 31-50 [Zbl 0812.11039] \textit{Huisman, Johan}, Heights on abelian varieties, 51-61 [Zbl 0811.14026] \textit{Top, Jaap}, D. Mumford's ``A remark on Mordell's conjecture'', 63-67 [Zbl 0811.14022] \textit{de Jong, Johan}, Ample line bundles and intersection theory, 69-76 [Zbl 0811.14005] \textit{van der Put, Marius}, The product theorem, 77-82 [Zbl 0811.14006] \textit{Faber, Carel}, Geometric part of Faltings's proof, 83-91 [Zbl 0811.14023] \textit{Kooman, Robert-Jan}, Faltings's version of Siegel's lemma, 93-96 [Zbl 0812.11040] \textit{Edixhoven, Bas}, Arithmetic part of Faltings's proof, 97-110 [Zbl 0811.14024] \textit{van der Geer, Gerard}, Points of degree \(d\) on curves over number fields, 111-116 [Zbl 0811.14029] \textit{Oort, Frans}, ``The'' general case of S. Lang's conjecture (after Faltings), 117-122 [Zbl 0811.14025]