Introduction to Abelian Varieties

This book presents an elementary and self-contained approach to Abelian varieties, a subject that plays a central role in algebraic and analytic geometry, number theory, and complex analysis. The book is based on notes from a course given at Concordia University and would be useful for independent study or as a textbook for graduate courses in complex analysis, Riemann surfaces, number theory, or analytic geometry. Murty works mostly over the complex numbers, discussing the theorem of Abel-Jacobi and Lefschetz's theorem on projective embeddings. After presenting some examples, Murty touches on Abelian varieties over number fields, as well as the conjecture of Tate (Faltings's theorem) and its relation to Mordell's conjecture. References are provided to guide the reader in further study. Graduate students and researchers wishing an introduction to the subject.