No label defined (Q4950147)

This introduction to algebraic geometry is based upon the lecture notes for a course that the author has taught in 1989-90 at Stanford University. These were revised for publication in 1998. The author's aim was to provide a text on algebraic geometry that can be used in a one-year course at the graduate level. Therefore the focus is on algebraic varieties and their basic properties, rather than on more general (and advanced) topics like schemes, sheaves and their cohomology, and rigorous intersection theory. As for the prerequisites, the author only assumes, besides a certain mathematical maturity, a good knowledge of field theory. The methods and results from commutative algebra, as they are needed for doing algebraic geometry, are basically developed from scratch, which makes the text widely self-contained. The book contains 14 chapters, the contents of which are as follows. Chapter 1 introduces affine sets and the Zariski topology defined by them. Chapter 2 develops the extension theorem for ring homomorphisms to algebraically closed fields, which serves as the basic tool for proving many results from commutative algebra in the sequel. Chapter 3 discusses morphisms between affine varieties, regular and rational functions, and the concept of function field of an irreducible affine variety. Chapter 4 deals with products of affine varieties and the concept of dimension (in the affine case) via the transcendency degree of the function field. Chapter 5 provides the necessary amount of local algebra needed for doing local algebraic geometry in the following chapters. Chapter 6 is devoted to the deeper study of the properties of affine varieties and their morphisms. This includes the separatedness of affine varieties, the study of the fibres of a morphism, regular and singular points of an affine variety, and the link to the normalization of an affine curve. Chapter 7 turns to abstract algebraic varieties, together with their structure sheaf, and thereafter to projective varieties as the main example for separated and complete abstract varieties. Chapter 8 develops, as an important and specific example, the first fundamental facts on complete non-singular curves, while chapter 9 gives some more algebraic background material. The subject of this chapter is algebraic ramification theory, with some emphasis on Dedekind rings and the arithmetical aspects. This will be used in the concluding chapters, which have a more arithmetical touch. Chapter 10 introduces the technique of completion for rings and fields, including Hensel's lemma, and chapter 11 explains the calculus of algebraic differentials and residues for function fields. Chapter 12 presents a proof of the Riemann-Roch theorem for complete singular curves. This approach is based upon A. Weil's classical adelic proof, and suitably tailored for the case of function fields over an algebraically closed field. The Riemann-Hurwitz formula is derived in the frame of this approach. Chapter 13 deals with elliptic curves and abelian varieties in the algebraic set-up, again in the classical spirit of A. Weil. The concluding chapter 14 is purely algebro-arithmetic. The author discusses the Riemann zeta function of a curve and ends with a proof of the Riemann hypothesis for elliptic curves. Summing up, this book provides an introduction to algebraic geometry which is certainly more algebraic (or arithmetic) than geometric. This is a very interesting approach in our days, in that it represents the classical approach, with all its merits and in all its beauty, from a contemporary point of view. The exposition is extremely clear, comprehensive and rigorous, and the many (challenging) exercises following each chapter are very deliberately selected. This book is a very valuable enhancement to the current textbook literature on (geometric) algebraic geometry, and a recommendable introduction to arithmetic geometry just as well.