Correspondences to abelian varieties. I (Q1325144)

A correspondence \(\alpha\) between smooth complete algebraic varieties \(X\) and \(Y\) over a field \(k\) is an element of the Chow group \(\text{CH}(X \times Y)\). The correspondence \(\alpha\) defines the push forward homomorphism \(\alpha_ * : H_ \bullet (X) \to H_ \bullet (Y)\) between the homology groups of \(X\) and \(Y\) and its transpose \(^ t \alpha \in \text{CH} (X \times Y)\) defines the pull back homomorphism \(^ t\alpha = \alpha^* : H^ \bullet (Y) \to H^ \bullet (X)\) in cohomology. For example given a morphism \(f : X \to Y\) of algebraic varieties the class \(\Gamma_ f\) of its graph is a correspondence in \(\text{CH}(X \times Y)\) and the associated homomorphism in (co)homology is the usual one associated to \(f\), i.e. \(\Gamma_{f_ *} = f_ * : H_ \bullet (X) \to H_ \bullet (Y)\) and \(\Gamma^*_ f = f^* : H^ \bullet (Y) \to H^ \bullet (X)\). A natural question is: when is a given correspondence \(\alpha \in \text{CH} (X \times Y)\) the graph of some morphism? Obviously there are the following necessary conditions for \(\alpha\) being a graph: (1) \(\dim \alpha = \dim X\), (2) \(\pi_{X_ *} (\alpha) = cl(X)\), where \(\pi_ X : X \times Y \to X\) is the projection and \(cl : \text{CH}(X) \to H (X)\) is the cycle map, and (3) \(\alpha\) commutes with the diagonal. In the paper under review it is shown that the above conditions are sufficient if \(Y\) is an abelian variety.