Algebraic Curves and Riemann Surfaces (Graduate Studies in Mathematics, Vol 5) (Graduate Studies in Mathematics, Vol 5)

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 center stage. But the main examples come from projective curves, and slowly but surely the text moves toward the algebraic category. Proofs of the Riemann-Roch and Serre Duality 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 and cohomology are introduced as a unifying device in the latter chapters, so that their utility and naturalness are immediately obvious. Requiring a background of a one semester of complex variable! theory and a year of abstract algebra, this is an excellent graduate textbook for a second-semester course in complex variables or a year-long course in algebraic geometry.

The book was easy to understand, with many examples. The exercises were well chosen, and served to give further examples and developments of the theory. —William Goldman, University of Maryland 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 center stage. But the main examples come from projective curves, and slowly but surely the text moves toward the algebraic category. Proofs of the Riemann-Roch and Serre Duality 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 and cohomology are introduced as a unifying device in the latter chapters, so that their utility and naturalness are immediately obvious. Requiring a background of one semester of complex variable theory and a year of abstract algebra, this is an excellent graduate textbook for a second-semester course in complex variables or a year-long course in algebraic geometry.

This text is an introduction to the theory of algebraic curves defined over the complex numbers. It begins with the definitions and first properties of Riemann surfaces, with special attention paid to the Riemann sphere, complex tori, hyperelliptic curves, smooth plane curves, and projective curves. The heart of the book is the treatment of divisors and rational functions, culminating in the theorems of Riemann-Roch and Abel and the analysis of the canonical map. Sheaves, cohomology, the Zariski topology, line bundles, and the Picard group are developed after these main theorems are proved and applied, as a bridge from the classical material to the modern language of algebraic geometry. 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. This book covers Riemann surfaces, with complex charts and meromorphic functions taking center stage. The author of this monograph argues 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