Line bundles over families of (super) Riemann surfaces. I: The non-graded case. II: The graded case (Q1801607)

The general motivation of the investigation under review comes from attempts to extend the celebrated Polyakov's approach to the computation of quantum scattering amplitudes in the bosonic string theory to superstrings. The scattering amplitudes in the Polyakov's approach can be interpreted geometrically in terms of integrals over moduli space of Riemann surfaces, a fact which indicates that a supersymmetric extension of this result requires elaborate study of families of super Riemann surfaces. In the two papers a relevant technique of relative line bundles over SUSY-curves is systematically developed in the setting of supergeometry à la Berezin-Leĭtes-Kostant. Part I deals with nongraded results about the families of ordinary Riemann surfaces. In particular, aiming at making the extension from the ``bosinic'' case to graded case more straightforward, the authors give new proofs -- and, in fact, a new interpretation -- to a number of previously known results. The authors concentrate on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem and the fact that a holomorphic line bundle on a Riemann surface is flat if and only if its Chern class vanishes; successful attempts to generalize the results to relative line bundles over SUSY-curves dominate the whole investigation. Techniques of fiberwise integration and relative Picard group are explored in the supersymmetric context. The presentation is exceptionally clear and consistent. Part II is of particular value, serving both as a nice introduction and a mini-encyclopaedia on SUSY-curves.