Surfaces are among the most common and easily visualized mathematical objects, and their study brings into focus fundamental ideas, concepts, and methods from geometry, topology, complex analysis, Morse theory, and group theory. This book introduces many of the principal actors - the round sphere, flat torus, Mobius strip, and Klein bottle.

This book grew out of lectures on Riemann surfaces given by Otto Forster at the universities of Munich, Regensburg, and Münster. It provides a concise modern introduction to this rewarding subject, as well as presenting methods used in the study of complex manifolds in the special case of complex dimension one. From the reviews: "This book deserves very serious consideration as a text for anyone contemplating giving a course on Riemann surfaces."—-MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS

K3 surfaces are central objects in modern algebraic geometry. This book examines this important class of Calabi–Yau manifolds from various perspectives in eighteen self-contained chapters. It starts with the basics and guides the reader to recent breakthroughs, such as the proof of the Tate conjecture for K3 surfaces and structural results on Chow groups. Powerful general techniques are introduced to study the many facets of K3 surfaces, including arithmetic, homological, and differential geometric aspects. In this context, the book covers Hodge structures, moduli spaces, periods, derived categories, birational techniques, Chow rings, and deformation theory. Famous open conjectures, for example the conjectures of Calabi, Weil, and Artin–Tate, are discussed in general and for K3 surfaces in particular, and each chapter ends with questions and open problems. Based on lectures at the advanced graduate level, this book is suitable for courses and as a reference for researchers.

The problem of enumerating maps (a map is a set of polygonal "countries" on a world of a certain topology, not necessarily the plane or the sphere) is an important problem in mathematics and physics, and it has many applications ranging from statistical physics, geometry, particle physics, telecommunications, biology, ... etc. This problem has been studied by many communities of researchers, mostly combinatorists, probabilists, and physicists. Since 1978, physicists have invented a method called "matrix models" to address that problem, and many results have been obtained. Besides, another important problem in mathematics and physics (in particular string theory), is to count Riemann surfaces. Riemann surfaces of a given topology are parametrized by a finite number of real parameters (called moduli), and the moduli space is a finite dimensional compact manifold or orbifold of complicated topology. The number of Riemann surfaces is the volume of that moduli space. Mor e generally, an important problem in algebraic geometry is to characterize the moduli spaces, by computing not only their volumes, but also other characteristic numbers called intersection numbers. Witten's conjecture (which was first proved by Kontsevich), was the assertion that Riemann surfaces can be obtained as limits of polygonal surfaces (maps), made of a very large number of very small polygons. In other words, the number of maps in a certain limit, should give the intersection numbers of moduli spaces. In this book, we show how that limit takes place. The goal of this book is to explain the "matrix model" method, to show the main results obtained with it, and to compare it with methods used in combinatorics (bijective proofs, Tutte's equations), or algebraic geometry (Mirzakhani's recursions). The book intends to be self-contained and accessible to graduate students, and provides comprehensive proofs, several examples, and give s the general formula for the enumeration of maps on surfaces of any topology. In the end, the link with more general topics such as algebraic geometry, string theory, is discussed, and in particular a proof of the Witten-Kontsevich conjecture is provided.

This book offers a wide-ranging introduction to algebraic geometry along classical lines. It consists of lectures on topics in classical algebraic geometry, including the basic properties of projective algebraic varieties, linear systems of hypersurfaces, algebraic curves (with special emphasis on rational curves), linear series on algebraic curves, Cremona transformations, rational surfaces, and notable examples of special varieties like the Segre, Grassmann, and Veronese varieties. An integral part and special feature of the presentation is the inclusion of many exercises, not easy to find in the literature and almost all with complete solutions. The text is aimed at students in the last two years of an undergraduate program in mathematics. It contains some rather advanced topics suitable for specialized courses at the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate level, as well as interesting topics for a senior thesis. The prerequisites have been deliberately limited to basic elements of projective geometry and abstract algebra. Thus, for example, some knowledge of the geometry of subspaces and properties of fields is assumed. The book will be welcomed by teachers and students of algebraic geometry who are seeking a clear and panoramic path leading from the basic facts about linear subspaces, conics and quadrics to a systematic discussion of classical algebraic varieties and the tools needed to study them. The text provides a solid foundation for approaching more advanced and abstract literature.

A sequel to Lectures on Riemann Surfaces (Mathematical Notes, 1966), this volume continues the discussion of the dimensions of spaces of holomorphic cross-sections of complex line bundles over compact Riemann surfaces. Whereas the earlier treatment was limited to results obtainable chiefly by one-dimensional methods, the more detailed analysis presented here requires the use of various properties of Jacobi varieties and of symmetric products of Riemann surfaces, and so serves as a further introduction to these topics as well. The first chapter consists of a rather explicit description of a canonical basis for the Abelian differentials on a marked Riemann surface, and of the description of the canonical meromorphic differentials and the prime function of a marked Riemann surface. Chapter 2 treats Jacobi varieties of compact Riemann surfaces and various subvarieties that arise in determining the dimensions of spaces of holomorphic cross-sections of complex line bundles. In Chapter 3, the author discusses the relations between Jacobi varieties and symmetric products of Riemann surfaces relevant to the determination of dimensions of spaces of holomorphic cross-sections of complex line bundles. The final chapter derives Torelli's theorem following A. Weil, but in an analytical context. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

These lectures, delivered by Professor Mumford at Harvard in 1963-1964, are devoted to a study of properties of families of algebraic curves, on a non-singular projective algebraic curve defined over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic. The methods and techniques of Grothendieck, which have so changed the character of algebraic geometry in recent years, are used systematically throughout. Thus the classical material is presented from a new viewpoint.