Introduction to the theory of schemes. Translated from the Russian by Dimitry Leites (Q1704463)

This is the first volume of the new textbook series ``Moscow lectures'' published by Springer Verlag since early 2018. The principal goal of this series is to make the traditionally strong and distinctive aspects of the long tradition of the Moscow mathematical school, ranging from the bygone Soviet times after World War II until the present, recurred Russian conditions after 1990, a lively part of the worldwide mathematical heritage, culture, and knowledge. Thus the authors of the textbooks in this series are renowned Russian mathematicians of several generations, all of whom represent the specific Moscow mathematical tradition, and who teach or have taught university courses in Moscow at the various mathematical institutions there. In this spirit, the present first volume ``Introduction to the theory of schemes'' by Yu. I. Manin is the English translation of the author's course notes ``Lectures on algebraic geometry'' from the teaching period 1966--1968 at the Department of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University. At that time, i.e. about 50 years ago, the famous Moscow mathematician Yu. I. Manin was barely 30 years old, and A. Grothendieck's refoundation of algebraic geometry via commutative algebra, schemes, sheaves, sheaf cohomology, categories, and functors was just on the point of emerging. Also, back then there were only D. Mumford's mimeographed Harvard lecture notes ``Introduction to algebraic geometry. Preliminary version of the first 3 chapters'' (1967), which later on appeared in book form as [\textit{D. Mumford}, The red book of varieties and schemes. Berlin etc.: Springer-Verlag (1988; Zbl 0658.14001)], and [\textit{I. G. Mcdonald}, Algebraic geometry. Introduction to schemes. New York-Amsterdam: W. A. Benjamin, Inc. VII. (1968; Zbl 0172.22401)], which provided the first primers on the newly established scheme theory. Therefore, Manin's Russian mimeographed notes from 1968 were absolutely equivalent to those two classics, but written in Russian, quickly out of print, and barely available outside Moscow. Now D. Leites did the rewarding job of translating (and finally editing) Yu. I. Manin's unique Moscow lectures on algebraic schemes from half a century ago, thereby preparing them for their final, well-deserved place in the (meanwhile vast) textbook literature in modern algebraic geometry. As for the contents, the book contains two chapters, each of which comprises several sections. Chapter~1 is titled ``Affine schemes'' and provides the basic concepts and results from commutative algebra and the (functorially dual) theory of affine schemes, including digressions on Serre's problem, Seshadri's theorem on projective modules, the zeta function of a ring, and the language of categories and (representable) functors. Chapter 2 comes with the heading ``Sheaves, schemes, and projective spaces'' and precisely deals with what the title indicates: sheaves, ringed spaces, schemes, projective spectra, sheaves of modules, invertible sheaves, Picard groups, Čech cohomology, the cohomology of projective spaces, Hilbert polynomials, the Grothendieck group, resolutions, and smoothness. The book ends with a large list of (old and topical) references, and throughout the text there are many instructive examples, remarks, and clarifying footnotes. The style of exposition is rather concise, very elegant, extremely lucid and enlightening, versatile, and -- despite its venerable age of fifty years -- absolutely modern and timely. Now as before, Yu. I. Manin's classic is a perfect introduction to the subject of scheme theory, and an excellent source for students, instructors, and mathematical physicists. No doubt, with this textbook, the mathematical community has another general standard reference in algebraic geometry at its disposal.