Lectures:
MW 1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. in Vincent Hall 207
Prerequisites:
Math 8201-2 or equivalent (A basic knowledge of projective space and properties of prime ideals in polynomial rings would be helpful, but is not necessary.)
Instructor:
Christine Berkesch
Office: Vincent Hall 254
Email: cberkesc -at- math.umn.edu (For faster response time, please include "Math8300" in the subject line.)
Office hours:
M 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. or by appointment (in Vincent Hall 254).
Textbook:
Discriminants, Resultants, and Multidimensional Determinants by I.M. Gelfand, M.M. Kapranov, and A.V. Zelevinsky, (Reprint of the) 1994 Edition, Birkhäuser, 2008. (errata here)
Course content:
This semester's Math 8300 is topics course discussing topics in the above book by Gelfand, Kapranov, and Zelevinsky.

We will begin in Part II of the book with a study of toric varieties and their associated A-discriminants. In the remaining time, we will return to Part I, which discusses projective duality and generalizes (to non-toric varieties) notions from Part II. More details are available here.
Other useful texts:
Toric Varieties, by D. Cox, J. Little, and H. Schenck, link here
Using Algebraic Geometry, by D. Cox, J. Little, and D. O'Shea, link here


Links

Christine Berkesch  ***  School of Mathematics  ***  University of Minnesota