Theta divisors whose Gauss map has a fiber of positive dimension (Q2286342)

The aim of this paper is to construct indecomposable principally polarized abelian varieties (ppavs) of any dimension \(g>3\) whose theta divisors contain translates of non-trivial abelian subvarieties. These families are used to construct examples when the Gauss map of the theta divisor is only generically finite and not finite. That is, the Gauss map in these cases has at least one positive-dimensional fiber. The authors also obtain lower-bounds on the dimension of Andreotti-Mayer loci. This paper is organized as follows: the first section is an introduction to the subject. In the second section the authors give a proof of the well-known result that if an abelian variety with a principal polarization is simple, then the Gauss map cannot have positive-dimensional fibers. They then give a refinement of this result that describes what happens when we vary such a fiber over an irreducible base.