scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1142366

Publication date 19 April 1998

algebraic cycles Chern classes Chow groups enumerative geometry intersection multiplicities intersection theory quadrics rational equivalence Riemann-Roch theorem

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to algebraic geometry (14-02) (Equivariant) Chow groups and rings; motives (14C15) Intersection theory, characteristic classes, intersection multiplicities in algebraic geometry (14C17) Enumerative problems (combinatorial problems) in algebraic geometry (14N10)

Review text

The aim of these notes is to present, together with an introduction to the basic concepts of intersection theory for algebraic varieties, a selection of concrete examples that illustrate various aspects of the calculations and practical uses of Chow groups and intersection rings of specific classes of algebraic varieties. Requiring a minimum of the theoretical framework and technical toolkit, the author attempts to demonstrate the richness of geometrical thinking by interweaving the ideas and methods of both modern algebraic intersection theory and classical enumerative projective geometry, and that by illuminating many down-to-earth examples which have been studied, over several decades and generations, by many geometers and by different methods. The text consists of eight chapters. After a brief introduction, in which Bezout's theorem and Plückers formulas serve as motivating examples, chapter I surveys the very basics on algebraic cycles, intersection multiplicities, Chow groups, and intersection rings. Chapter II discusses the axiomatic framework of Chern classes, methods for their explicit calculation in special cases, and the ubiquity of the Riemann-Roch theorem for vector bundles on algebraic varieties. The intersection ring of a projective bundle is the subject of chapter III, while the intersection theory of Grassmann varieties, via Schubert calculus and tautological bundles, is sketched in chapter IV. This chapter also contains an application to the enumerative geometry of linear varieties in projective hypersurfaces. Chapter V illustrates the geometry of flag varieties by means of Grothendieck's description and D. Monk's presentation, with a special motivating emphasis on flags in lower-dimensional projective spaces. Chapter VI deals with the computation of characteristic numbers of families of projective varieties. This is a fairly recent topic in enumerative geometry, to which the author himself has contributed quite a lot of ideas and results. The family of twisted cubics is the main illustrating example for the explicit calculation of characteristic numbers in this context. Chapter VII is devoted to methods of determining the structure of the Chow groups for blow-up's of non-singular varieties along non-singular subvarieties, and the concluding chapter VIII presents two examples of intersection rings of varieties of complete quadrics (in \(\mathbb{P}^3)\) and complete conics (in \(\mathbb{P}^n)\), respectively. The rich bibliography at the end of the notes, and the many hints to the (classical and recent) original works cited here, enhance the beauty and the value of this practical guide through the principles of algebraic intersection theory and its relations to traditional enumerative geometry. Also, this booklet is a lovely invitation to studying intersection theory in its more advanced aspects, such as they are comprehensively provided by W. Fulton's standard text ``Intersection theory [cf.: \textit{W. Fulton}, Intersection Theory. Ergeb. Math. Grenzgeb., 3. Folge, Band 2 (1984; Zbl 0541.14005)].

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