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Algebraic geometers have renewed their interest in the interplay between algebraic vector bundles and projective embeddings. New methods have been developed for questions such as: what is the geometric content of syzygies and of bundles derived from them? how can they be used for giving good compactifications of natural families? which differential techniques are needed for the study of families of projective varieties? Such problems have often been reformulated over the last decade; often the need for a deeper analysis of the works of classical algebraic geometers was recognised. These questions were addressed at successive conferences held in Trieste and Bergen. New results, work in progress, conjectures and modern accounts of classical ideas were presented. This collection represents a development of the work conducted at the conferences; the Editors have taken the opportunity to mould the papers into a cohesive volume.

This book provides a comprehensive and self-contained exposition of the algebro-geometric theory of singularities of plane curves, covering both its classical and its modern aspects. The book gives a unified treatment, with complete proofs, presenting modern results which have only ever appeared in research papers. It updates and correctly proves a number of important classical results for which there was formerly no suitable reference, and includes new, previously unpublished results as well as applications to algebra and algebraic geometry. This book will be useful as a reference text for researchers in the field. It is also suitable as a textbook for postgraduate courses on singularities, or as a supplementary text for courses on algebraic geometry (algebraic curves) or commutative algebra (valuations, complete ideals).

Singularity theory encompasses many different aspects of geometry and topology, and an overview of these is represented here by papers given at the International Singularity Conference held in 1991 at Lille. The conference attracted researchers from a wide variety of subject areas, including differential and algebraic geometry, topology, and mathematical physics. Some of the best known figures in their fields participated, and their papers have been collected here. Contributors to this volume include G. Barthel, J. W. Bruce, F. Delgado, M. Ferrarotti, G. M. Greuel, J. P. Henry, L. Kaup, B. Lichtin, B. Malgrange, M. Merle, D. Mond, L. Narvaez, V. Neto, A. A. Du Plessis, R. Thom and M. Vaquié. Research workers in singularity theory or related subjects will find that this book contains a wealth of valuable information on all aspects of the subject.

This book contains conference proceedings from the 1996 Durham Symposium on'Galois representations in arithmetic algebraic geometry'. The title was interpreted loosely and the symposium covered recent developments on the interface between algebraic number theory and arithmetic algebraic geometry. The book reflects this and contains a mixture of articles. Some are expositions of subjects which have received substantial attention, e.g. Erez on geometric trends in Galois module theory; Mazur on rational points on curves and varieties; Moonen on Shimura varieties in mixed characteristics; Rubin and Scholl on the work of Kato on the Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture; and Schneider on rigid geometry. Others are research papers by authors such as Coleman and Mazur, Goncharov, Gross and Serre.

Algebraic geometry has benefited enormously from the powerful general machinery developed in the latter half of the twentieth century. The cost has been that much of the research of previous generations is in a language unintelligible to modern workers, in particular, the rich legacy of classical algebraic geometry, such as plane algebraic curves of low degree, special algebraic surfaces, theta functions, Cremona transformations, the theory of apolarity and the geometry of lines in projective spaces. The author's contemporary approach makes this legacy accessible to modern algebraic geometers and to others who are interested in applying classical results. The vast bibliography of over 600 references is complemented by an array of exercises that extend or exemplify results given in the book.

Matroid theory is a vibrant area of research that provides a unified way to understand graph theory, linear algebra and combinatorics via finite geometry. This book provides the first comprehensive introduction to the field which will appeal to undergraduate students and to any mathematician interested in the geometric approach to matroids. Written in a friendly, fun-to-read style and developed from the authors'own undergraduate courses, the book is ideal for students. Beginning with a basic introduction to matroids, the book quickly familiarizes the reader with the breadth of the subject, and specific examples are used to illustrate the theory and to help students see matroids as more than just generalizations of graphs. Over 300 exercises are included, with many hints and solutions so students can test their understanding of the materials covered. The authors have also included several projects and open-ended research problems for independent study.

What do proteins and pop-up cards have in common? How is opening a grocery bag different from opening a gift box? How can you cut out the letters for a whole word all at once with one straight scissors cut? How many ways are there to flatten a cube? With the help of 200 colour figures, author Joseph O'Rourke explains these fascinating folding problems starting from high school algebra and geometry and introducing more advanced concepts in tangible contexts as they arise. He shows how variations on these basic problems lead directly to the frontiers of current mathematical research and offers ten accessible unsolved problems for the enterprising reader. Before tackling these, you can test your skills on fifty exercises with complete solutions. The book's website, http://www.howtofoldit.org, has dynamic animations of many of the foldings and downloadable templates for readers to fold or cut out.

The development of Maxim Kontsevich's initial ideas on motivic integration has unexpectedly influenced many other areas of mathematics, ranging from the Langlands program over harmonic analysis, to non-Archimedean analysis, singularity theory and birational geometry. This book assembles the different theories of motivic integration and their applications for the first time, allowing readers to compare different approaches and assess their individual strengths. All of the necessary background is provided to make the book accessible to graduate students and researchers from algebraic geometry, model theory and number theory. Applications in several areas are included so that readers can see motivic integration at work in other domains. In a rapidly-evolving area of research this book will prove invaluable. This first volume contains introductory texts on the model theory of valued fields, different approaches to non-Archimedean geometry, and motivic integration on algebraic varieties and non-Archimedean spaces.

Spencer Bloch's 1979 Duke lectures, a milestone in modern mathematics, have been out of print almost since their first publication in 1980, yet they have remained influential and are still the best place to learn the guiding philosophy of algebraic cycles and motives. This edition, now professionally typeset, has a new preface by the author giving his perspective on developments in the field over the past 30 years. The theory of algebraic cycles encompasses such central problems in mathematics as the Hodge conjecture and the Bloch–Kato conjecture on special values of zeta functions. The book begins with Mumford's example showing that the Chow group of zero-cycles on an algebraic variety can be infinite-dimensional, and explains how Hodge theory and algebraic K-theory give new insights into this and other phenomena.

This is a self-contained 2010 account of the state of the art in classical complex multiplication that includes recent results on rings of integers and applications to cryptography using elliptic curves. The author is exhaustive in his treatment, giving a thorough development of the theory of elliptic functions, modular functions and quadratic number fields and providing a concise summary of the results from class field theory. The main results are accompanied by numerical examples, equipping any reader with all the tools and formulas they need. Topics covered include: the construction of class fields over quadratic imaginary number fields by singular values of the modular invariant j and Weber's tau-function; explicit construction of rings of integers in ray class fields and Galois module structure; the construction of cryptographically relevant elliptic curves over finite fields; proof of Berwick's congruences using division values of the Weierstrass p-function; relations between elliptic units and class numbers.

The biennial meetings at São Carlos have helped create a worldwide community of experts and young researchers working on singularity theory, with a special focus on applications to a wide variety of topics in both pure and applied mathematics. The tenth meeting, celebrating the 60th birthdays of Terence Gaffney and Maria Aparecida Soares Ruas, was a special occasion attracting the best known names in the area. This volume contains contributions by the attendees, including three articles written or co-authored by Gaffney himself, and survey articles on the existence of Milnor fibrations, global classifications and graphs, pairs of foliations on surfaces, and Gaffney's work on equisingularity.

This book presents methods and results from the theory of Zariski structures and discusses their applications in geometry as well as various other mathematical fields. Its logical approach helps us understand why algebraic geometry is so fundamental throughout mathematics and why the extension to noncommutative geometry, which has been forced by recent developments in quantum physics, is both natural and necessary. Beginning with a crash course in model theory, this book will suit not only model theorists but also readers with a more classical geometric background.

This book is, on the one hand, a pedagogical introduction to the formalism of slopes, of semi-stability and of related concepts in the simplest possible context. It is therefore accessible to any graduate student with a basic knowledge in algebraic geometry and algebraic groups. On the other hand, the book also provides a thorough introduction to the basics of period domains, as they appear in the geometric approach to local Langlands correspondences and in the recent conjectural p-adic local Langlands program. The authors provide numerous worked examples and establish many connections to topics in the general area of algebraic groups over finite and local fields. In addition, the end of each section includes remarks on open questions, historical context and references to the literature.

Now back in print, this highly regarded book has been updated to reflect recent advances in the theory of semistable coherent sheaves and their moduli spaces, which include moduli spaces in positive characteristic, moduli spaces of principal bundles and of complexes, Hilbert schemes of points on surfaces, derived categories of coherent sheaves, and moduli spaces of sheaves on Calabi–Yau threefolds. The authors review changes in the field since the publication of the original edition in 1997 and point the reader towards further literature. References have been brought up to date and errors removed. Developed from the authors'lectures, this book is ideal as a text for graduate students as well as a valuable resource for any mathematician with a background in algebraic geometry who wants to learn more about Grothendieck's approach.

The arithmetic properties of modular forms and elliptic curves lie at the heart of modern number theory. This book develops a generalisation of the method of Euler systems to a two-variable deformation ring. The resulting theory is then used to study the arithmetic of elliptic curves, in particular the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer (BSD) formula. Three main steps are outlined: the first is to parametrise'big'cohomology groups using (deformations of) modular symbols. Finiteness results for big Selmer groups are then established. Finally, at weight two, the arithmetic invariants of these Selmer groups allow the control of data from the BSD conjecture. As the first book on the subject, the material is introduced from scratch; both graduate students and professional number theorists will find this an ideal introduction. Material at the very forefront of current research is included, and numerical examples encourage the reader to interpret abstract theorems in concrete cases.

There is now much interplay between studies on logarithmic forms and deep aspects of arithmetic algebraic geometry. New light has been shed, for instance, on the famous conjectures of Tate and Shafarevich relating to abelian varieties and the associated celebrated discoveries of Faltings establishing the Mordell conjecture. This book gives an account of the theory of linear forms in the logarithms of algebraic numbers with special emphasis on the important developments of the past twenty-five years. The first part covers basic material in transcendental number theory but with a modern perspective. The remainder assumes some background in Lie algebras and group varieties, and covers, in some instances for the first time in book form, several advanced topics. The final chapter summarises other aspects of Diophantine geometry including hypergeometric theory and the André-Oort conjecture. A comprehensive bibliography rounds off this definitive survey of effective methods in Diophantine geometry.

This self-contained 2007 textbook presents an exposition of the well-known classical two-dimensional geometries, such as Euclidean, spherical, hyperbolic, and the locally Euclidean torus, and introduces the basic concepts of Euler numbers for topological triangulations, and Riemannian metrics. The careful discussion of these classical examples provides students with an introduction to the more general theory of curved spaces developed later in the book, as represented by embedded surfaces in Euclidean 3-space, and their generalization to abstract surfaces equipped with Riemannian metrics. Themes running throughout include those of geodesic curves, polygonal approximations to triangulations, Gaussian curvature, and the link to topology provided by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. Numerous diagrams help bring the key points to life and helpful examples and exercises are included to aid understanding. Throughout the emphasis is placed on explicit proofs, making this text ideal for any student with a basic background in analysis and algebra.

Algebraic geometry is a central subfield of mathematics in which the study of cycles is an important theme. Alexander Grothendieck taught that algebraic cycles should be considered from a motivic point of view and in recent years this topic has spurred a lot of activity. This 2007 book is one of two volumes that provide a self-contained account of the subject. Together, the two books contain twenty-two contributions from leading figures in the field which survey the key research strands and present interesting new results. Topics discussed include: the study of algebraic cycles using Abel-Jacobi/regulator maps and normal functions; motives (Voevodsky's triangulated category of mixed motives, finite-dimensional motives); the conjectures of Bloch-Beilinson and Murre on filtrations on Chow groups and Bloch's conjecture. Researchers and students in complex algebraic geometry and arithmetic geometry will find much of interest here.

Random matrix theory is an area of mathematics first developed by physicists interested in the energy levels of atomic nuclei, but it can also be used to describe some exotic phenomena in the number theory of elliptic curves. The purpose of this book is to illustrate this interplay of number theory and random matrices. It begins with an introduction to elliptic curves and the fundamentals of modelling by a family of random matrices, and moves on to highlight the latest research. There are expositions of current research on ranks of elliptic curves, statistical properties of families of elliptic curves and their associated L-functions and the emerging uses of random matrix theory in this field. Most of the material here had its origin in a Clay Mathematics Institute workshop on this topic at the Newton Institute in Cambridge and together these contributions provide a unique in-depth treatment of the subject.

Algebraic geometry, central to pure mathematics, has important applications in such fields as engineering, computer science, statistics and computational biology, which exploit the computational algorithms that the theory provides. Users get the full benefit, however, when they know something of the underlying theory, as well as basic procedures and facts. This book is a systematic introduction to the central concepts of algebraic geometry most useful for computation. Written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics and researchers in application areas, it focuses on specific examples and restricts development of formalism to what is needed to address these examples. In particular, it introduces the notion of Gröbner bases early on and develops algorithms for almost everything covered. It is based on courses given over the past five years in a large interdisciplinary programme in computational algebraic geometry at Rice University, spanning mathematics, computer science, biomathematics and bioinformatics.

Algebraic geometry is a central subfield of mathematics in which the study of cycles is an important theme. Alexander Grothendieck taught that algebraic cycles should be considered from a motivic point of view and in recent years this topic has spurred a lot of activity. This book is one of two volumes that provide a self-contained account of the subject as it stands. Together, the two books contain twenty-two contributions from leading figures in the field which survey the key research strands and present interesting new results. Topics discussed include: the study of algebraic cycles using Abel-Jacobi/regulator maps and normal functions; motives (Voevodsky's triangulated category of mixed motives, finite-dimensional motives); the conjectures of Bloch-Beilinson and Murre on filtrations on Chow groups and Bloch's conjecture. Researchers and students in complex algebraic geometry and arithmetic geometry will find much of interest here.

This volume surveys important topics in singularity theory, with a particular focus on computational aspects of the subject. The contributors to this volume include R. O. Buchweitz, Y. A. Drozd, W. Ebeling, H. A. Hamm, Le D. T., I. Luengo, F.-O. Schreyer, E. Shustin, J. H. M. Steenbrink, D. van Straten, B. Teissier and J. Wahl. Together they describe the development of various areas of singularity theory over many years, and a range of open questions are discussed. Research workers in singularity theory, computer algebra or related subjects will find that this book contains a wealth of valuable information.

Diophantine geometry has been studied by number theorists for thousands of years, since the time of Pythagoras, and has continued to be a rich area of ideas such as Fermat's Last Theorem, and most recently the ABC conjecture. This monograph is a bridge between the classical theory and modern approach via arithmetic geometry. The authors provide a clear path through the subject for graduate students and researchers. They have re-examined many results and much of the literature, and give a thorough account of several topics at a level not seen before in book form. The treatment is largely self-contained, with proofs given in full detail. Many results appear here for the first time. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography. It is destined to be a definitive reference on modern diophantine geometry, bringing a new standard of rigor and elegance to the field.

The seminal formula of Gross and Zagier relating heights of Heegner points to derivatives of the associated Rankin L-series has led to many generalisations and extensions in a variety of different directions, spawning a fertile area of study that remains active to this day. This volume, based on a workshop on Special Values of Rankin L-series held at the MSRI in December 2001, is a collection of thirteen articles written by many of the leading contributors in the field, having the Gross-Zagier formula and its avatars as a common unifying theme. It serves as a valuable reference for mathematicians wishing to become further acquainted with the theory of complex multiplication, automorphic forms, the Rankin-Selberg method, arithmetic intersection theory, Iwasawa theory, and other topics related to the Gross-Zagier formula.

The aim of this book is to present a modern treatment of the theory of theta functions in the context of algebraic geometry. The novelty of its approach lies in the systematic use of the Fourier-Mukai transform. The author starts by discussing the classical theory of theta functions from the point of view of the representation theory of the Heisenberg group (in which the usual Fourier transform plays the prominent role). He then shows that in the algebraic approach to this theory, the Fourier–Mukai transform can often be used to simplify the existing proofs or to provide completely new proofs of many important theorems. Graduate students and researchers with strong interest in algebraic geometry will find much of interest in this volume.

The interplay between algebra and geometry is a beautiful (and fun!) area of mathematical investigation. Advances in computing and algorithms make it possible to tackle many classical problems in a down-to-earth and concrete fashion. This opens wonderful new vistas and allows us to pose, study and solve problems that were previously out of reach. Suitable for graduate students, the objective of this 2003 book is to bring advanced algebra to life with lots of examples. The first chapters provide an introduction to commutative algebra and connections to geometry. The rest of the book focuses on three active areas of contemporary algebra: Homological Algebra (the snake lemma, long exact sequence inhomology, functors and derived functors (Tor and Ext), and double complexes); Algebraic Combinatorics and Algebraic Topology (simplicial complexes and simplicial homology, Stanley-Reisner rings, upper bound theorem and polytopes); and Algebraic Geometry (points and curves in projective space, Riemann-Roch, Cech cohomology, regularity).

The relations between Frobenius manifolds and singularity theory are treated here in a rigorous yet accessible manner. For those working in singularity theory or other areas of complex geometry, this book will open the door to the study of Frobenius manifolds. This class of manifolds are now known to be relevant for the study of singularity theory, quantum cohomology, mirror symmetry, symplectic geometry and integrable systems. The first part of the book explains the theory of manifolds with a multiplication on the tangent bundle. The second presents a simplified explanation of the role of Frobenius manifolds in singularity theory along with all the necessary tools and several applications. Readers will find here a careful and sound study of the fundamental structures and results in this exciting branch of maths. This book will serve as an excellent resource for researchers and graduate students who wish to work in this area.

Abstract regular polytopes stand at the end of more than two millennia of geometrical research, which began with regular polygons and polyhedra. They are highly symmetric combinatorial structures with distinctive geometric, algebraic or topological properties; in many ways more fascinating than traditional regular polytopes and tessellations. The rapid development of the subject in the past 20 years has resulted in a rich new theory, featuring an attractive interplay of mathematical areas, including geometry, combinatorics, group theory and topology. Abstract regular polytopes and their groups provide an appealing new approach to understanding geometric and combinatorial symmetry. This is the first comprehensive up-to-date account of the subject and its ramifications, and meets a critical need for such a text, because no book has been published in this area of classical and modern discrete geometry since Coxeter's Regular Polytopes (1948) and Regular Complex Polytopes (1974). The book should be of interest to researchers and graduate students in discrete geometry, combinatorics and group theory.

Ever since the seminal work of Goppa on algebraic-geometry codes, rational points on algebraic curves over finite fields have been an important research topic for algebraic geometers and coding theorists. The focus in this application of algebraic geometry to coding theory is on algebraic curves over finite fields with many rational points (relative to the genus). Recently, the authors discovered another important application of such curves, namely to the construction of low-discrepancy sequences. These sequences are needed for numerical methods in areas as diverse as computational physics and mathematical finance. This has given additional impetus to the theory of, and the search for, algebraic curves over finite fields with many rational points. This book aims to sum up the theoretical work on algebraic curves over finite fields with many rational points and to discuss the applications of such curves to algebraic coding theory and the construction of low-discrepancy sequences.

Singularity theory is a broad subject with vague boundaries. It draws on many other areas of mathematics, and in turn has contributed to many areas both within and outside mathematics, in particular differential and algebraic geometry, knot theory, differential equations, bifurcation theory, Hamiltonian mechanics, optics, robotics and computer vision. This volume consists of two dozen articles from some of the best known figures in singularity theory, and it presents an up-to-date survey of research in this area.

This is an introduction to non-commutative geometry, with special emphasis on those cases where the structure algebra, which defines the geometry, is an algebra of matrices over the complex numbers. Applications to elementary particle physics are also discussed. This second edition is thoroughly revised and includes new material on reality conditions and linear connections plus examples from Jordanian deformations and quantum Euclidean spaces. Only some familiarity with ordinary differential geometry and the theory of fibre bundles is assumed, making this book accessible to graduate students and newcomers to this field.

This book is the outcome of the 1996 Warwick Algebraic Geometry EuroConference, containing 17 survey and research articles selected from the most outstanding contemporary research topics in algebraic geometry. Several of the articles are expository: among these a beautiful short exposition by Paranjape of the new and very simple approach to the resolution of singularities; a detailed essay by Ito and Nakamura on the ubiquitous A,D,E classification, centred around simple surface singularities; a discussion by Morrison of the new special Lagrangian approach to giving geometric foundations to mirror symmetry; and two deep, informative surveys by Siebert and Behrend on Gromow-Witten invariants treating them from the point of view of algebraic and symplectic geometry. The remaining articles cover a wide cross-section of the most significant research topics in algebraic geometry. This includes Gromow-Witten invariants, Hodge theory, Calabi-Yau 3-folds, mirror symmetry and classification of varieties.

The study of (special cases of) elliptic curves goes back to Diophantos and Fermat, and today it is still one of the liveliest centres of research in number theory. This book, which is addressed to beginning graduate students, introduces basic theory from a contemporary viewpoint but with an eye to the historical background. The central portion deals with curves over the rationals: the Mordell-Weil finite basis theorem, points of finite order (Nagell-Lutz) etc. The treatment is structured by the local-global standpoint and culminates in the description of the Tate-Shafarevich group as the obstruction to a Hasse principle. In an introductory section the Hasse principle for conics is discussed. The book closes with sections on the theory over finite fields (the'Riemann hypothesis for function fields') and recently developed uses of elliptic curves for factoring large integers. Prerequisites are kept to a minimum; an acquaintance with the fundamentals of Galois theory is assumed, but no knowledge either of algebraic number theory or algebraic geometry is needed. The p-adic numbers are introduced from scratch, as is the little that is needed on Galois cohomology. Many examples and exercises are included for the reader. For those new to elliptic curves, whether they are graduate students or specialists from other fields, this will be a fine introductory text.

The study of abelian manifolds forms a natural generalization of the theory of elliptic functions, that is, of doubly periodic functions of one complex variable. When an abelian manifold is embedded in a projective space it is termed an abelian variety in an algebraic geometrical sense. This introduction presupposes little more than a basic course in complex variables. The notes contain all the material on abelian manifolds needed for application to geometry and number theory, although they do not contain an exposition of either application. Some geometrical results are included however.

The first of two companion volumes on anabelian algebraic geometry, this book contains the famous, but hitherto unpublished manuscript'Esquisse d'un Programme'(Sketch of a Program) by Alexander Grothendieck. This work, written in 1984, fourteen years after his retirement from public life in mathematics, together with the closely connected letter to Gerd Faltings, dating from 1983 and also published for the first time in this volume, describe a powerful program of future mathematics, unifying aspects of geometry and arithmetic via the central point of moduli spaces of curves; it is written in an artistic and informal style. The book also contains several articles on subjects directly related to the ideas explored in the manuscripts; these are surveys of mathematics due to Grothendieck, explanations of points raised in the Esquisse, and surveys on progress in the domains described there.

Singularity theory is not a field in itself, but rather an application of algebraic geometry, analytic geometry and differential analysis. The adjective'singular'in the title refers here to singular points of complex-analytic or algebraic varieties or mappings. A tractable (and very natural) class of singularities to study are the isolated complete intersection singularities, and much progress has been made over the past decade in understanding these and their deformations.

The study of vector bundles over algebraic varieties has been stimulated over the last few years by successive waves of migrant concepts, largely from mathematical physics, whilst retaining its roots in old questions concerning subvarieties of projective space. The 1993 Durham Symposium on Vector Bundles in Algebraic Geometry brought together some of the leading researchers in the field to explore further these interactions. This book is a collection of survey articles by the main speakers at the symposium and presents to the mathematical world an overview of the key areas of research involving vector bundles. Topics covered include those linking gauge theory and geometric invariant theory such as augmented bundles and coherent systems; Donaldson invariants of algebraic surfaces; Floer homology and quantum cohomology; conformal field theory and the moduli spaces of bundles on curves; the Horrocks–Mumford bundle and codimension 2 subvarieties in P4 and P5; exceptional bundles and stable sheaves on projective space.

Dessins d'Enfants are combinatorial objects, namely drawings with vertices and edges on topological surfaces. Their interest lies in their relation with the set of algebraic curves defined over the closure of the rationals, and the corresponding action of the absolute Galois group on them. The study of this group via such realted combinatorial methods as its action on the Dessins and on certain fundamental groups of moduli spaces was initiated by Alexander Grothendieck in his unpublished Esquisse d'un Programme, and developed by many of the mathematicians who have contributed to this volume. The various articles here unite all of the basics of the subject as well as the most recent advances. Researchers in number theory, algebraic geometry or related areas of group theory will find much of interest in this book.

A polarised variety is a modern generalization of the notion of a variety in classical algebraic geometry. It consists of a pair: the algebraic variety itself, together with an ample line bundle on it. Using techniques from abstract algebraic geometry that have been developed over recent decades, Professor Fujita develops classification theories of such pairs using invariants that are polarised higher-dimensional versions of the genus of algebraic curves. The heart of the book is the theory of D-genus and sectional genus developed by the author, but numerous related topics are discussed or surveyed. Proofs are given in full in the central part of the development, but background and technical results are sometimes just sketched when the details are not essential for understanding the key ideas. Readers are assumed to have some background in algebraic geometry, including sheaf cohomology, and for them this work will provide an illustration of the power of modern abstract techniques applied to concrete geometric problems. Thus the book helps the reader not only to understand about classical objects but also modern methods, and so it will be useful not only for experts but also non-specialists and graduate students.

This book surveys progress in the domains described in the hitherto unpublished manuscript'Esquisse d'un Programme'(Sketch of a Program) by Alexander Grothendieck. It will be of wide interest amongst workers in algebraic geometry, number theory, algebra and topology.

The number theoretic properties of curves of genus 2 are attracting increasing attention. This book provides new insights into this subject; much of the material here is entirely new, and none has appeared in book form before. Included is an explicit treatment of the Jacobian, which throws new light onto the geometry of the Kummer surface. The Mordell–Weil group can then be determined for many curves, and in many non-trivial cases all rational points can be found. The results exemplify the power of computer algebra in diophantine contexts, but computer expertise is not assumed in the main text. Number theorists, algebraic geometers and workers in related areas will find that this book offers unique insights into the arithmetic of curves of genus 2.

There is now a large body of theory concerning algebraic varieties over finite fields, and many conjectures exist in this area that are of great interest to researchers in number theory and algebraic geometry. This book is concerned with the arithmetic of diagonal hypersurfaces over finite fields, with special focus on the Tate conjecture and the Lichtenbaum–Milne formula for the central value of the L-function. It combines theoretical and numerical work, and includes tables of Picard numbers. Although this book is aimed at experts, the authors have included some background material to help non-specialists gain access to the results.

Developed over more than a century, and still an active area of research today, the classification of algebraic surfaces is an intricate and fascinating branch of mathematics. In this book Professor Beauville gives a lucid and concise account of the subject, following the strategy of F. Enriques, but expressed simply in the language of modern topology and sheaf theory, so as to be accessible to any budding geometer. This volume is self contained and the exercises succeed both in giving the flavour of the extraordinary wealth of examples in the classical subject, and in equipping the reader with most of the techniques needed for research.