Preface

Summary

General facts

The Institut Fourier has been organizing summer schools in mathematics for several years. They are intended for researchers as well as graduate students from all countries. One of the main aims is to transmit fundamental knowledge in the field of mathematics and to promote the exchange of ideas between researchers. The subject of each summer school is closely linked with the research themes of the Institut Fourier's teams. During these schools, several foreign and French lecturers are invited. The graduate students will get an efficient and useful complementary training and have an opportunity to get in touch with the most current research in the world. The participants will discover the Grenoble department and may pursue their research in collaboration with Grenoble researchers.

Each summer school takes place at the Institut Fourier, lasts three weeks and hosts about 70 participants (upon application, a selection will be made). Twenty to 25 hours of lectures or seminars are given each week on different themes.

The subject of the Summer School 2001 was ‘Transcendental Aspects of Algebraic Cycles’.

Organizers: Chris Peters (Institut Fourier, Grenoble) and Stefan Müller-Stach (University Essen, Germany).

About these proceedings

Introductory material

The first week of the Summer School was devoted to explaining some basic material in order to make up for the different backgrounds and levels of the participants.

Firstly Stefan Müller-Stach explained Griffiths' theory of the period map starting from elliptic curves, moving up to higher genus curves and then to the general situation of a family of projective varieties.