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.

Inhalt

1 Curves on a Surface.- Invariants of a surface.- Divisors on a surface.- Adjunction and arithmetic genus.- The Riemann-Roch formula.- Algebraic proof of the Hodge index theorem.- Ample and nef divisors.- Exercises.- 2 Coherent Sheaves.- What is a coherent sheaf?.- A rapid review of Chern classes for projective varieties.- Rank 2 bundles and sub-line bundles.- Elementary modifications.- Singularities of coherent sheaves.- Torsion free and reflexive sheaves.- Double covers.- Appendix: some commutative algebra.- Exercises.- 3 Birational Geometry.- Blowing up.- The Castelnuovo criterion and factorization of birational morphisms.- Minimal models.- More general contractions.- Exercises.- 4 Stability.- Definition of Mumford-Takemoto stability.- Examples for curves.- Some examples of stable bundles on ?2.- Gieseker stability.- Unstable and semistable sheaves.- Change of polarization.- The differential geometry of stable vector bundles.- Exercises.- 5 Some Examples of Surfaces.- Rational ruled surfaces.- General ruled surfaces.- Linear systems of cubics.- An introduction toK3 surfaces.- Exercises.- 6 Vector Bundles over Ruled Surfaces.- Suitable ample divisors.- Ruled surfaces.- A brief introduction to local and global moduli.- A Zariski open subset of the moduli space.- Exercises.- 7 An Introduction to Elliptic Surfaces.- Singular fibers.- Singular fibers of elliptic fibrations.- Invariants and the canonical bundle formula.- Elliptic surfaces with a section and Weierstrass models.- More general elliptic surfaces.- The fundamental group.- Exercises.- 8 Vector Bundles over Elliptic Surfaces.- Stable bundles on singular curves.- Stable bundles of odd fiber degree over elliptic surfaces.- A Zariski open subset of the moduli space.- An overview of Donaldson invariants.- The 2-dimensional invariant.- Moduli spaces via extensions.- Vector bundles with trivial determinant.- Even fiber degree and multiple fibers.- Exercises.- 9 Bogomolov's Inequality and Applications.- Statement of the theorem.- The theorems of Bombieri and Reider.- The proof of Bogomolov's theorem.- Symmetric powers of vector bundles on curves.- Restriction theorems.- Appendix: Galois descent theory.- Exercises.- 10 Classification of Algebraic Surfaces and of Stable.- Bundles.- Outline of the classification of surfaces.- Proof of Castelnuovo's theorem.- The Albanese map.- Proofs of the classification theorems for surfaces.- The Castelnuovo-deFranchis theorem.- Classification of threefolds.- Classification of vector bundles.- Exercises.- References.