Holomorphic Vector Bundles Over Compact Complex Surfaces

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 novel feature of the book is its integrated approach to algebraic surface theory and the study of vector bundle theory on both curves and surfaces. While the two subjects remain separate through the first few chapters, they become much more tightly interconnected as the book progresses. Thus vector bundles over curves are studied to understand ruled surfaces, and then reappear in the proof of Bogomolov's inequality for stable bundles, which is itself applied to study canonical embeddings of surfaces via Reider's method. Similarly, ruled and elliptic surfaces are discussed in detail, before the geometry of vector bundles over such surfaces is analysed. Many of the results on vector bundles appear for the first time in book form, backed by many examples, both of surfaces and vector bundles, and over 100 exercises forming an integral part of the text. Aimed at graduates with a thorough first-year course in algebraic geometry, as well as more advanced students and researchers in the areas of algebraic geometry, gauge theory, or 4-manifold topology, many of the results on vector bundles will also be of interest to physicists studying string theory.

The description for this book, Lectures on Vector Bundles over Riemann Surfaces. (MN-6), Volume 6, will be forthcoming.

Holomorphic vector bundles have become objects of interest not only to algebraic and differential geometers and complex analysts but also to low dimensional topologists and mathematical physicists working on gauge theory. This book, which grew out of the author's lectures and seminars in Berkeley and Japan, is written for researchers and graduate students in these various fields of mathematics. Originally published in 1987. 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.

The fifteen articles composing this volume focus on recent developments in complex analysis. Written by well-known researchers in complex analysis and related fields, they cover a wide spectrum of research using the methods of partial differential equations as well as differential and algebraic geometry. The topics include invariants of manifolds, the complex Neumann problem, complex dynamics, Ricci flows, the Abel-Radon transforms, the action of the Ricci curvature operator, locally symmetric manifolds, the maximum principle, very ampleness criterion, integrability of elliptic systems, and contact geometry. Among the contributions are survey articles, which are especially suitable for readers looking for a comprehensive, well-presented introduction to the most recent important developments in the field. The contributors are R. Bott, M. Christ, J. P. D'Angelo, P. Eyssidieux, C. Fefferman, J. E. Fornaess, H. Grauert, R. S. Hamilton, G. M. Henkin, N. Mok, A. M. Nadel, L. Nirenberg, N. Sibony, Y.-T. Siu, F. Treves, and S. M. Webster.

In 1961 Smale established the generalized Poincare Conjecture in dimensions greater than or equal to 5 [129] and proceeded to prove the h-cobordism theorem [130]. This result inaugurated a major effort to classify all possible smooth and topological structures on manifolds of dimension at least 5. By the mid 1970's the main outlines of this theory were complete, and explicit answers (especially concerning simply connected manifolds) as well as general qualitative results had been obtained. As an example of such a qualitative result, a closed, simply connected manifold of dimension 2: 5 is determined up to finitely many diffeomorphism possibilities by its homotopy type and its Pontrjagin classes. There are similar results for self-diffeomorphisms, which, at least in the simply connected case, say that the group of self-diffeomorphisms of a closed manifold M of dimension at least 5 is commensurate with an arithmetic subgroup of the linear algebraic group of all automorphisms of its so-called rational minimal model which preserve the Pontrjagin classes [131]. Once the high dimensional theory was in good shape, attention shifted to the remaining, and seemingly exceptional, dimensions 3 and 4. The theory behind the results for manifolds of dimension at least 5 does not carryover to manifolds of these low dimensions, essentially because there is no longer enough room to maneuver. Thus new ideas are necessary to study manifolds of these "low" dimensions.

The papers in this volume cover many important topics of current interest in partial differential equations and several complex variables. An international group of well-known mathematicians has contributed original research articles on diverse topics such as the geometry of complex manifolds, the mean curvature equation, formal solutions of singular partial differential equations, and complex vector fields. The material in this volume is useful for graduate students and researchers interested in partial differential equations and several complex variables.