Compact Moduli Spaces And Vector Bundles

This book contains the proceedings of the conference on Compact Moduli and Vector Bundles, held from October 21-24, 2010, at the University of Georgia. This book is a mix of survey papers and original research articles on two related subjects: Compact Moduli spaces of algebraic varieties, including of higher-dimensional stable varieties and pairs, and Vector Bundles on such compact moduli spaces, including the conformal block bundles. These bundles originated in the 1970s in physics; the celebrated Verlinde formula computes their ranks. Among the surveys are those that examine compact moduli spaces of surfaces of general type and others that concern the GIT constructions of log canonical models of moduli of stable curves. The original research articles include, among others, papers on a formula for the Chern classes of conformal classes of conformal block bundles on the moduli spaces of stable curves, on Looijenga's conjectures, on algebraic and tropical Brill-Noether theory, on Green's conjecture, on rigid curves on moduli of curves, and on Steiner surfaces.

This book focusses on a large class of objects in moduli theory and provides different perspectives from which compactifications of moduli spaces may be investigated. Three contributions give an insight on particular aspects of moduli problems. In the first of them, various ways to construct and compactify moduli spaces are presented. In the second, some questions on the boundary of moduli spaces of surfaces are addressed. Finally, the theory of stable quotients is explained, which yields meaningful compactifications of moduli spaces of maps. Both advanced graduate students and researchers in algebraic geometry will find this book a valuable read.

Coverage includes foundational material as well as current research, authored by top specialists within their fields.

This book offers a concise yet thorough introduction to the notion of moduli spaces of complex algebraic curves. Over the last few decades, this notion has become central not only in algebraic geometry, but in mathematical physics, including string theory, as well. The book begins by studying individual smooth algebraic curves, including the most beautiful ones, before addressing families of curves. Studying families of algebraic curves often proves to be more efficient than studying individual curves: these families and their total spaces can still be smooth, even if there are singular curves among their members. A major discovery of the 20th century, attributed to P. Deligne and D. Mumford, was that curves with only mild singularities form smooth compact moduli spaces. An unexpected byproduct of this discovery was the realization that the analysis of more complex curve singularities is not a necessary step in understanding the geometry of the moduli spaces. The book does not use the sophisticated machinery of modern algebraic geometry, and most classical objects related to curves – such as Jacobian, space of holomorphic differentials, the Riemann-Roch theorem, and Weierstrass points – are treated at a basic level that does not require a profound command of algebraic geometry, but which is sufficient for extending them to vector bundles and other geometric objects associated to moduli spaces. Nevertheless, it offers clear information on the construction of the moduli spaces, and provides readers with tools for practical operations with this notion. Based on several lecture courses given by the authors at the Independent University of Moscow and Higher School of Economics, the book also includes a wealth of problems, making it suitable not only for individual research, but also as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate coursework

The purpose of this book is to present the available (sometimes only partial) solutions to the two fundamental problems: the existence problem and the classification problem for holomorphic structures in a given topological vector bundle over a compact complex surface. Special features of the nonalgebraic surfaces case, like irreducible vector bundles and stability with respect to a Gauduchon metric, are considered. The reader requires a grounding in geometry at graduate student level. The book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in complex, algebraic and differential geometry.

A graduate-level introduction to some of the important contemporary ideas and problems in the theory of moduli spaces.