Algebraic Geometry And Its Applications

Algebraic Geometry and its Applications will be of interest not only to mathematicians but also to computer scientists working on visualization and related topics. The book is based on 32 invited papers presented at a conference in honor of Shreeram Abhyankar's 60th birthday, which was held in June 1990 at Purdue University and attended by many renowned mathematicians (field medalists), computer scientists and engineers. The keynote paper is by G. Birkhoff; other contributors include such leading names in algebraic geometry as R. Hartshorne, J. Heintz, J.I. Igusa, D. Lazard, D. Mumford, and J.-P. Serre.

Recent advances in both the theory and implementation of computational algebraic geometry have led to new, striking applications to a variety of fields of research. The articles in this volume highlight a range of these applications and provide introductory material for topics covered in the IMA workshops on "Optimization and Control" and "Applications in Biology, Dynamics, and Statistics" held during the IMA year on Applications of Algebraic Geometry. The articles related to optimization and control focus on burgeoning use of semidefinite programming and moment matrix techniques in computational real algebraic geometry. The new direction towards a systematic study of non-commutative real algebraic geometry is well represented in the volume. Other articles provide an overview of the way computational algebra is useful for analysis of contingency tables, reconstruction of phylogenetic trees, and in systems biology. The contributions collected in this volume are accessible to non-experts, self-contained and informative; they quickly move towards cutting edge research in these areas, and provide a wealth of open problems for future research.

Papers about algebraic geometry and their applications.

Rigid (analytic) spaces were invented to describe degenerations, reductions, and moduli of algebraic curves and abelian varieties. This work, a revised and greatly expanded new English edition of an earlier French text by the same authors, presents important new developments and applications of the theory of rigid analytic spaces to abelian varieties, "points of rigid spaces," étale cohomology, Drinfeld modular curves, and Monsky-Washnitzer cohomology. The exposition is concise, self-contained, rich in examples and exercises, and will serve as an excellent graduate-level text for the classroom or for self-study.

This book and the following second volume is an introduction into modern algebraic geometry. In the first volume the methods of homological algebra, theory of sheaves, and sheaf cohomology are developed. These methods are indispensable for modern algebraic geometry, but they are also fundamental for other branches of mathematics and of great interest in their own. In the last chapter of volume I these concepts are applied to the theory of compact Riemann surfaces. In this chapter the author makes clear how influential the ideas of Abel, Riemann and Jacobi were and that many of the modern methods have been anticipated by them.

An illustration of the many uses of algebraic geometry, highlighting the more recent applications of Groebner bases and resultants. Along the way, the authors provide an introduction to some algebraic objects and techniques more advanced than typically encountered in a first course. The book is accessible to non-specialists and to readers with a diverse range of backgrounds, assuming readers know the material covered in standard undergraduate courses, including abstract algebra. But because the text is intended for beginning graduate students, it does not require graduate algebra, and in particular, does not assume that the reader is familiar with modules.

This volume contains 18 papers at the Algebraic Geometry Conference, Yaroslavl', August 10-14, 1992. These conferences in algebraic geometry have a great tradition in Russia and are helt since 1979 in Yaroslavl' every second year. The present conference, the eighth one, was the first in which several foreign mathematicians participated. From the Russian side, there was a large group of specialists in algebraic geometry and related fields (invariant theory, topology of manifolds, theory of categories, mathematical physics etc.). Lectures on modern directions in algebraic geometry, such as the theory of exceptional bundles and helices on algebraic varieties, moduli of vector bundles on algebraic surfaces with applications to Donaldson's theory, geometry of Hilbert schemes of points, twistor spaces and applications to string theory, and more traditional areas, such as birational geometry of manifolds, adjunction theory, Hodge theory, problems of rationality in the invariant theory, topology of complex algebraic varieties, and others are contained in this volume.

Algebraic Geometry and its Applications will be of interest not only to mathematicians but also to computer scientists working on visualization and related topics. The book is based on 32 invited papers presented at a conference in honor of Shreeram Abhyankar's 60th birthday, which was held in June 1990 at Purdue University and attended by many renowned mathematicians (field medalists), computer scientists and engineers. The keynote paper is by G. Birkhoff; other contributors include such leading names in algebraic geometry as R. Hartshorne, J. Heintz, J.I. Igusa, D. Lazard, D. Mumford, and J.-P. Serre.