Can any one recommend me a good introductory book in Riemann Surface?
9 Answers
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It depends partly what you are more interested in, geometry or analysis. There are two relevant categories: compact complex manifolds of dimension one (and holomorphic maps), and algebraic complex curves (and rational maps). The approach in the wonderful book of Miranda is to consider the functor from algebraic curves to compact complex one manifolds, although he never fully proves it is well defined. The more analytic approach is to begin with compact complex one manifolds and prove they are all representable as algebraic curves. This is probably the approach of Forster. Another excellent analytic monograph from this point of view is the Princeton lecture notes on Riemann surfaces by Robert Gunning, which is also a good place to learn sheaf theory. His main result is that all compact complex one manifolds occur as the Riemann surface of an algebraic curve. Miranda's book contains more study of the geometry of algebraic curves.
Riemann himself, as I recall, took an intermediate view, showing the equivalence of the categories of (irreducible) algebraic curves with that of (connected) compact complex manifolds equipped with a finite holomorphic map to P^1. Another extremely nice book, a little more advanced than Miranda, is the China notes on algebraic curves by Phillip Griffiths. Mumford's book Complex projective varieties I, also has a terrific chapter on curves from the complex analytic point of view.
After you learn the basics, the book of Arbarello, Cornalba, Griffiths, Harris, is just amazing. Of course Riemann's thesis and followup paper on theory of abelian functions is rather incredible as well.
Thanks to Georges Elencwajg for significant corrections to this answer.
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I strongly reccomend "Algebraic Curves and Riemann Surfaces" by Rick Miranda. I found the book very clearly written, very pedagogical and an excellent reference. It also features quite a lot of exercises, at the end of each subsection, which will help you to get acquainted with the subject.
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There are many good references. Personally I found the following survey article very inspiring when learning the subject :
J.-B. Bost, Introduction to compact Riemann surfaces, Jacobians, and abelian varieties, in From number theory to physics (Les Houches, 1989), Springer, Berlin, 1992, pp. 64--211.
It is clearly written, contains historical comments and a lot of mathematical gems.
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'Algebraic curves and Riemann surfaces' by Miranda and 'Riemann surfaces' by Farkas and Kra are both very good.
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Frances Kirwan's book Complex Algebraic Curves has two really nice chapters on Riemann Surfaces and over all the level of the book is pretty decent to start with. The book is intended to be accessible to advanced undergraduates so perhaps not as advanced as you'd like, but it is a good reference nonetheless.
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I enjoyed Simon Donaldson's book "Riemann Surfaces", Oxford Graduate Texts in Mathematics (2011). Extremely well-written and recommendable for beginners.
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I enjoyed Erik Reyssat's book in the Progress in Mathematics series for it balance between clarity and concision.
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Simon Donaldson's book Riemann Surfaces is great.
Abstract:
The theory of Riemann surfaces occupies a very special place in mathematics. It is a culmination of much of traditional calculus, making surprising connections with geometry and arithmetic. It is an extremely useful part of mathematics, knowledge of which is needed by specialists in many other fields. It provides a model for a large number of more recent developments in areas including manifold topology, global analysis, algebraic geometry, Riemannian geometry, and diverse topics in mathematical physics. This text on Riemann surface theory proves the fundamental analytical results on the existence of meromorphic functions and the Uniformisation Theorem. The approach taken emphasises PDE methods, applicable more generally in global analysis. The connection with geometric topology, and in particular the role of the mapping class group, is also explained. To this end, some more sophisticated topics have been included, compared with traditional texts at this level. While the treatment is novel, the roots of the subject in traditional calculus and complex analysis are kept well in mind. Part I sets up the interplay between complex analysis and topology, with the latter treated informally. Part II works as a rapid first course in Riemann surface theory, including elliptic curves. The core of the book is contained in Part III, where the fundamental analytical results are proved.