In mathematics, the discriminant of a polynomial is a quantity that depends on the coefficients and allows deducing some properties of the roots without computing them. More precisely, it is a polynomial function of the coefficients of the original polynomial. The discriminant is widely used in polynomial factoring, number theory, and algebraic geometry.
Bézout's theorem is a statement in algebraic geometry concerning the number of common zeros of n polynomials in n indeterminates. In its original form the theorem states that in general the number of common zeros equals the product of the degrees of the polynomials. It is named after Étienne Bézout.
The modularity theorem states that elliptic curves over the field of rational numbers are related to modular forms. Andrew Wiles proved the modularity theorem for semistable elliptic curves, which was enough to imply Fermat's Last Theorem. Later, a series of papers by Wiles's former students Brian Conrad, Fred Diamond and Richard Taylor, culminating in a joint paper with Christophe Breuil, extended Wiles's techniques to prove the full modularity theorem in 2001.
Algebraic varieties are the central objects of study in algebraic geometry, a sub-field of mathematics. Classically, an algebraic variety is defined as the set of solutions of a system of polynomial equations over the real or complex numbers. Modern definitions generalize this concept in several different ways, while attempting to preserve the geometric intuition behind the original definition.
In mathematics, a quadratic form is a polynomial with terms all of degree two. For example,
In mathematics, birational geometry is a field of algebraic geometry in which the goal is to determine when two algebraic varieties are isomorphic outside lower-dimensional subsets. This amounts to studying mappings that are given by rational functions rather than polynomials; the map may fail to be defined where the rational functions have poles.
In geometry, a hypersurface is a generalization of the concepts of hyperplane, plane curve, and surface. A hypersurface is a manifold or an algebraic variety of dimension n − 1, which is embedded in an ambient space of dimension n, generally a Euclidean space, an affine space or a projective space. Hypersurfaces share, with surfaces in a three-dimensional space, the property of being defined by a single implicit equation, at least locally, and sometimes globally.
In mathematics, a cubic surface is a surface in 3-dimensional space defined by one polynomial equation of degree 3. Cubic surfaces are fundamental examples in algebraic geometry. The theory is simplified by working in projective space rather than affine space, and so cubic surfaces are generally considered in projective 3-space . The theory also becomes more uniform by focusing on surfaces over the complex numbers rather than the real numbers; note that a complex surface has real dimension 4. A simple example is the Fermat cubic surface
In mathematics, a rational variety is an algebraic variety, over a given field K, which is birationally equivalent to a projective space of some dimension over K. This means that its function field is isomorphic to
In the mathematical field of algebraic geometry, a singular point of an algebraic varietyV is a point P that is 'special', in the geometric sense that at this point the tangent space at the variety may not be regularly defined. In case of varieties defined over the reals, this notion generalizes the notion of local non-flatness. A point of an algebraic variety which is not singular is said to be regular. An algebraic variety which has no singular point is said to be non-singular or smooth.
In algebraic geometry, a surface of general type is an algebraic surface with Kodaira dimension 2. Because of Chow's theorem any compact complex manifold of dimension 2 and with Kodaira dimension 2 will actually be an algebraic surface, and in some sense most surfaces are in this class.
In number theory and algebraic geometry, a rational point of an algebraic variety is a point whose coordinates belong to a given field. If the field is not mentioned, the field of rational numbers is generally understood. If the field is the field of real numbers, a rational point is more commonly called a real point.
In algebraic geometry, a Fano variety, introduced by Gino Fano in, is a complete variety X whose anticanonical bundle KX* is ample. In this definition, one could assume that X is smooth over a field, but the minimal model program has also led to the study of Fano varieties with various types of singularities, such as terminal or klt singularities. Recently techniques in differential geometry have been applied to the study of Fano varieties over the complex numbers, and success has been found in constructing moduli spaces of Fano varieties and proving the existence of Kähler–Einstein metrics on them through the study of K-stability of Fano varieties.
In algebraic geometry, the Chow groups of an algebraic variety over any field are algebro-geometric analogs of the homology of a topological space. The elements of the Chow group are formed out of subvarieties in a similar way to how simplicial or cellular homology groups are formed out of subcomplexes. When the variety is smooth, the Chow groups can be interpreted as cohomology groups and have a multiplication called the intersection product. The Chow groups carry rich information about an algebraic variety, and they are correspondingly hard to compute in general.
In algebraic geometry, a Fano surface is a surface of general type whose points index the lines on a non-singular cubic threefold. They were first studied by Fano (1904).
In algebraic geometry, a branch of mathematics, a Hilbert scheme is a scheme that is the parameter space for the closed subschemes of some projective space, refining the Chow variety. The Hilbert scheme is a disjoint union of projective subschemes corresponding to Hilbert polynomials. The basic theory of Hilbert schemes was developed by Alexander Grothendieck (1961). Hironaka's example shows that non-projective varieties need not have Hilbert schemes.
In the differential geometry of surfaces in three dimensions, umbilics or umbilical points are points on a surface that are locally spherical. At such points the normal curvatures in all directions are equal, hence, both principal curvatures are equal, and every tangent vector is a principal direction. The name "umbilic" comes from the Latin umbilicus (navel).
In mathematics, a Fermat quintic threefold is a special quintic threefold, in other words a degree 5, dimension 3 hypersurface in 4-dimensional complex projective space, given by the equation
The terminology of algebraic geometry changed drastically during the twentieth century, with the introduction of the general methods, initiated by David Hilbert and the Italian school of algebraic geometry in the beginning of the century, and later formalized by André Weil, Jean-Pierre Serre and Alexander Grothendieck. Much of the classical terminology, mainly based on case study, was simply abandoned, with the result that books and papers written before this time can be hard to read. This article lists some of this classical terminology, and describes some of the changes in conventions.
In the mathematical fields of algebraic geometry and arithmetic geometry, the Consani–Scholten quintic is an algebraic hypersurface studied in 2001 by Caterina Consani and Jasper Scholten. It has been used as a test case for the Langlands program.
