Hong Kong Geometry Colloquium

October 30, 2004 (Saturday)

Room 517, Meng Wah Complex, HKU

 


 

Professor Sheng-Li Tan

East China Normal University, Shanghai

On the Riemann-Roch Problem

 

Abstract

 

Riemann-Roch problem is one of the most important classical problems in algebraic geometry. It is to compute effectively the dimension of a multiple linear system |nD| on a complex projective manifold X for large n. If X is a curve, the problem was solved completely by Riemann and Roch in the 1850s due to their formula. However, if the dimension of X is at least 2, this problem is not completely solved although we still have Riemann-Roch formula. In the surface case, Zariski (1962) and CutkoskySrinivas (1993) gave an ineffective solution to the problem, namely they proved the periodicity of the dimension as a function of n for large n, and the lower bound on n is ineffective.

 

In the special case where D is ample, it is well known that the dimension can be computed by RR formula if n is bigger than some number N. The classical Effective Postulation Problem is to find an effective N. The effective postulation problem for the linear systems of plane curves with some fixed singularities at given points were studied by many famous mathematicians, e.g., Cayley, Castelnuvo, Hilbert, Noether, Severi, Zariski, ….

 

In this talk, I am going to present optimal effective solutions to these classical problems in the surface case. As an application, we will give also some optimal lower bounds on Sheshadri’s constants of line bundles on some surfaces.