Matthias Schütt

Radu Laza

Noriko Yui

In recent years, research in K3 surfaces and Calabi–Yau varieties has seen spectacular progress from both arithmetic and geometric points of view, which in turn continues to have a huge influence and impact in theoretical physics—in particular, in string theory. The workshop on Arithmetic and Geometry of K3 surfaces and Calabi–Yau threefolds, held at the Fields Institute (August 16-25, 2011), aimed to give a state-of-the-art survey of these new developments. This proceedings volume includes a representative sampling of the broad range of topics covered by the workshop. While the subjects range from arithmetic geometry through algebraic geometry and differential geometry to mathematical physics, the papers are naturally related by the common theme of Calabi–Yau varieties. With the big variety of branches of mathematics and mathematical physics touched upon, this area reveals many deep connections between subjects previously considered unrelated. Unlike most other conferences, the 2011 Calabi–Yau workshop started with 3 days of introductory lectures. A selection of 4 of these lectures is included in this volume. These lectures can be used as a starting point for the graduate students and other junior researchers, or as a guide to the subject.

Arithmetic and Geometry of K3 Surfaces and Calabi–Yau Threefolds

Tetsuji Shioda

This book lays out the theory of Mordell–Weil lattices, a very powerful and influential tool at the crossroads of algebraic geometry and number theory, which offers many fruitful connections to other areas of mathematics. The book presents all the ingredients entering into the theory of Mordell–Weil lattices in detail, notably, relevant portions of lattice theory, elliptic curves, and algebraic surfaces. After defining Mordell–Weil lattices, the authors provide several applications in depth. They start with the classification of rational elliptic surfaces. Then a useful connection with Galois representations is discussed. By developing the notion of excellent families, the authors are able to design many Galois representations with given Galois groups such as the Weyl groups of E6, E7 and E8. They also explain a connection to the classical topic of the 27 lines on a cubic surface. Two chapters deal with elliptic K3 surfaces, a pulsating area of recent research activity which highlights many central properties of Mordell–Weil lattices. Finally, the book turns to the rank problem—one of the key motivations for the introduction of Mordell–Weil lattices. The authors present the state of the art of the rank problem for elliptic curves both over Q and over C(t) and work out applications to the sphere packing problem. Throughout, the book includes many instructive examples illustrating the theory.

Mordell–Weil Lattices

Anne Frühbis-Krüger

Remke Nanne Kloosterman

Several important aspects of moduli spaces and irreducible holomorphic symplectic manifolds were highlighted at the conference “Algebraic and Complex Geometry” held September 2012 in Hannover, Germany. These two subjects of recent ongoing progress belong to the most spectacular developments in Algebraic and Complex Geometry. Irreducible symplectic manifolds are of interest to algebraic and differential geometers alike, behaving similar to K3 surfaces and abelian varieties in certain ways, but being by far less well-understood. Moduli spaces, on the other hand, have been a rich source of open questions and discoveries for decades and still continue to be a hot topic in itself as well as with its interplay with neighbouring fields such as arithmetic geometry and string theory. Beyond the above focal topics this volume reflects the broad diversity of lectures at the conference and comprises 11 papers on current research from different areas of algebraic and complex geometry sorted in alphabetic order by the first author. It also includes a full list of speakers with all titles and abstracts.

Matthias Schütt

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