Function theory 2. Riemann surfaces, several complex variables, abelian functions, higher modular forms (Q5901367)

The book under review is the companion volume of the author's and \textit{R. Busam's} well-known, meanwhile utmost popular and widespread introductory text ``Complex Analysis'' [Universitext. Berlin: Springer (2009; Zbl 1167.30001)]. The German original of the first volume entitled ``Funktionentheorie 1'' [Springer-Lehrbuch. Berlin: Springer-Verlag (1993; Zbl 0783.30001)]. Providing a fairly detailed and comprehensive introduction to the classical main topics of the theory of functions of one complex variable, including elliptic functions and elliptic modular forms, the text of the first volume has successively been revisited and enlarged over the past fifteen years, culminating so far in its fourth German and its second English edition, respectively. Also, in the preface to the first volume, the authors incidentally indicated that a subsequent companion volume was planned, and that promised second part of their popular primer of complex analysis has now been brought about by the first author. Based on courses taught by him at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, the notes of which could be found on his web site for some time, and building upon the foundations laid in the first volume, the current text turns to a number of more advanced topics in classical complex analysis. The main themes are indicated in the subtitle of book: Riemann surfaces, several complex variables, abelian functions, and modular forms of several variables. As the author points out, these topics have been chosen deliberately, since they actually represent consistent further developments of the basic fundamentals covered in the first volume of the entire treatise. As for the contents, the present second volume contains eight chapters, each of which is subdivided into several sections. The first four chapters are devoted to one of the main parts of the text, namely to the theory of Riemann surfaces. Chapter I treats the elementary theory of Riemann surfaces, including the basic prerequisites from general topology, the concept of Riemann surface, and first important examples of Riemann surfaces. Chapter II is titled ``Harmonic Functions on Riemann Surfaces'' and discusses a series of constructive methods in the study of Riemann surfaces. In the course of this chapter, the author describes several approaches to the construction of harmonic functions on Riemann surfaces with prescribed properties, with particular emphasis laid on boundary value problems, singularities, and stability problems. Chapter III provides an introduction to the uniformization theory of Riemann surfaces in both its topological and its analytical aspects. The highlight of this chapter is a proof of the Uniformization Theorem due to P. Koebe and H. Poincaré, accompanied by proofs of the famous Picard Theorems as illustrating applications. Chapter IV, the most extensive part of the discussion of Riemann surfaces in the present book, is exclusively devoted to compact Riemann surfaces. The author thoroughly explains meromorphic differentials, the interrelation between compact Riemann surfaces and algebraic functions, triangulations of compact Rienann surfaces, normal forms, coverings and the Hurwitz Ramification Formula, the Riemann period relations, the Riemann-Roch Theorem, Abel's Theorem, Jacobi's Inversion Problem, and multicanonical modular forms on compact Riemann surfaces in full detail. The treatment of Jacobi's Inversion Theorem leads the reader in a very natural way to the problem of creating a theory of functions of several complex variables, the basics of which are then developed in the subsequent Chapter V. The material covered in this comparatively brief chapter includes the elementary properties of holomorphic functions of several variables, the allied theory of complex power series in several variables, the concept of analytic maps, the Weierstrass Preparation Theorem, the representation of meronorphic functions as quotients of analytic functions, and an introduction to alternating differential forms. The leading theme, namely the inversion of algebraic integrals in general, is then taken up again in Chapter VI. Building upon the framework of Riemann surfaces, and on the necessary background material from higher-dimensional complex function theory, as having been made available so far, this chapter provides an introduction to the classical theory of abelian functions. Accordingly, the reader becomes here acquainted with lattices and tori, the Hodge theory of the latter, factors of automorphy, Riemann forms on lattices, the higher-dimensional period relations, and with general theta series as generalizations of the Jacobi theta function in the elliptic case. The discussion culminates in the description of the field of abelian functions in arbitrary genus, together with an outlook to polarized abelian varieties and general complex manifolds. Chapter VII consistently turns then to the allied theory of modular forms of several variables, thereby generalizing the theory of elliptic modular forms as developed in the foregoing first volume of the treatise. The aim of this concluding chapter is to deliver a rather elementary and self-contained introduction to the subject, with special emphasis on the next simple case of dimension two. Siegel modular groups, modular forms of degree \(n\), the Koecher principle, modular congruence subgroups and their generators, theta functions associated to modular groups, and fundamental domains of modular groups are the main objects of study in Chapter VII. The main goal and highlight of this part of the book is to derive an elementary proof of J. Igusa's structure theorem describing the ring of modular forms for the modular group \(\Gamma_2[4,8]\) by means of the ten classical ``theta nullwerte'' of degree 2. The analogous statement in the elliptic case had been proved by quite similar methods in Volume 1 which shows once more to what great extent the two volumes together actually form a unit, both epistomologically and didactically. Chapter VIII is an appendix gathering some purely algebraic tools from the theory of rings and fields, including factorial rings, discriminants, and algebraic function fields, and that as far as those are utilized in the course of the text. Each single section comes with a number of related exercises complementing the respective material, where many of them are equipped with directing hints and remarks. However, solutions to the exercises (like in Volume 1) are not yet provided in the current first edition of this companion volume. All together, this long anticipated second volume of the author's introduction to various topics in complex analysis stands out by all the features that already characterized the first part of the overall treatise. Those have been extensively summarized and appraised in our review of the second English edition of the first volume (Zbl 1167.30001), and we may refer to this very judgement in every regard and detail, as the present second volume breathes exactly the same individual spirit, the same refined cultural viewpoint, and the same didactic mastery as its predecessor. Together with the latter, the current book is largely self-contained, pleasantly down-to-earth, remarkably versatile, and utmost educating simultaneously. No doubt, this textbook provides an excellent source for the further study of more advanced topics in the theory of Riemann surfaces, their Jacobians and moduli aspects, and in the general theory of complex abelian varieties and modular forms likewise. Hopefully, an English edition of this second volume of a masterful primer of complex analysis will be made available in the near future as well.