Algebraic Functions And Projective Curves

This book gives an introduction to algebraic functions and projective curves. It covers a wide range of material by dispensing with the machinery of algebraic geometry and proceeding directly via valuation theory to the main results on function fields. It also develops the theory of singular curves by studying maps to projective space, including topics such as Weierstrass points in characteristic p, and the Gorenstein relations for singularities of plane curves.

This is an excellent introduction to algebraic geometry, which assumes only standard undergraduate mathematical topics: complex analysis, rings and fields, and topology. Reading this book will help establish the geometric intuition that lies behind the more advanced ideas and techniques used in the study of higher-dimensional varieties.

Plane Algebraic Curves is a classroom-tested textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in mathematics. The book introduces the contemporary notions of algebraic varieties, morphisms of varieties, and adeles to the classical subject of plane curves over algebraically closed fields. By restricting the rigorous development of these notions to a traditional context the book makes its subject accessible without extensive algebraic prerequisites. Once the reader's intuition for plane curves has evolved, there is a discussion of how these objects can be generalized to higher dimensional settings. These features, as well as a proof of the Riemann-Roch Theorem based on a combination of geometric and algebraic considerations, make the book a good foundation for more specialized study in algebraic geometry, commutative algebra, and algebraic function fields. Plane Algebraic Curves is suitable for readers with a variety of backgrounds and interests. The book begins with a chapter outlining prerequisites, and contains informal discussions giving an overview of its material and relating it to non-algebraic topics which would be familiar to the general reader. There is an explanation of why the algebraic genus of a hyperelliptic curve agrees with its geometric genus as a compact Riemann surface, as well as a thorough description of how the classically important elliptic curves can be described in various normal forms. The book concludes with a bibliography which students can incorporate into their further studies. Book jacket.

An accessible introduction to plane algebraic curves that also serves as a natural entry point to algebraic geometry.

* Employs proven conception of teaching topics in commutative algebra through a focus on their applications to algebraic geometry, a significant departure from other works on plane algebraic curves in which the topological-analytic aspects are stressed *Requires only a basic knowledge of algebra, with all necessary algebraic facts collected into several appendices * Studies algebraic curves over an algebraically closed field K and those of prime characteristic, which can be applied to coding theory and cryptography * Covers filtered algebras, the associated graded rings and Rees rings to deduce basic facts about intersection theory of plane curves, applications of which are standard tools of computer algebra * Examples, exercises, figures and suggestions for further study round out this fairly self-contained textbook

In this book, Miranda takes the approach that algebraic curves are best encountered for the first time over the complex numbers, where the reader's classical intuition about surfaces, integration, and other concepts can be brought into play. Therefore, many examples of algebraic curves are presented in the first chapters. In this way, the book begins as a primer on Riemann surfaces, with complex charts and meromorphic functions taking centre stage. But the main examples come fromprojective curves, and slowly but surely the text moves toward the algebraic category. Proofs of the Riemann-Roch and Serre Dualtiy Theorems are presented in an algebraic manner, via an adaptation of the adelic proof, expressed completely in terms of solving a Mittag-Leffler problem. Sheaves andcohomology are introduced as a unifying device in the later chapters, so that their utility and naturalness are immediately obvious. Requiring a background of one term of complex variable theory and a year of abstract algebra, this is an excellent graduate textbook for a second-term course in complex variables or a year-long course in algebraic geometry.