Graduate Texts in Mathematics 71

Editorial Board
F. W. Gehring P. R. Halmos (Managing Editor)
c. C. Moore
H. M. Farkas I. Kra

Riemann Surfaces

With 27 Figures

Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Hershel M. Farkas lrwin Kra
Department of Mathematics Department of Mathematics
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook
Jerusalem Stony Brook, NY 11794
Israel USA

Editorial Board

P. R. Halmos F. W. Gehring
Managing Editor University of Michigan
Indiana University Department of Mathematics
Department of Mathematics Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
Bloomington, Indiana 47401 USA
USA

c. C. Moore
University of California
Department of Mathematics
Berkeley, California 94720
USA

AMS Classification (1980): 30Fxx, 14H15, 20H1O

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Farkas, Hershel M
Riemann surfaces.

(Graduate texts in mathematics; v. 71)

Bibliography: p.
lncludes index.
1. Riemann surfaces. 1. Kra, Irwin, joint authoL
II. Title. III. Series.
QA333.F37 515'.223 79-24385

AII rights reserved.

No part of this book may be translated or reprodueed in any
form without written permission from Springer-Verlag.

© 1980 by Springer Seience+Business Media New York

Originally publishcd bySpringer-Verlag New York lne in 1980.
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1980

987654 32 1
ISBN 978-1-4684-9932-2 ISBN 978-1-4684-9930-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4684-9930-8
To
Eleanor
Sara
Preface

The present volume is the culmination often years' work separately and joint-
ly. The idea of writing this book began with a set of notes for a course given
by one of the authors in 1970-1971 at the Hebrew University. The notes
were refined serveral times and used as the basic content of courses given sub-
sequently by each of the authors at the State University of New York at
Stony Brook and the Hebrew University.
In this book we present the theory of Riemann surfaces and its many dif-
ferent facets. We begin from the most elementary aspects and try to bring the
reader up to the frontier of present-day research. We treat both open and
closed surfaces in this book, but our main emphasis is on the compact case.
In fact, Chapters III, V, VI, and VII deal exclusively with compact surfaces.
Chapters I and II are preparatory, and Chapter IV deals with uniformization.
All works on Riemann surfaces go back to the fundamental results of Rie-
mann, Jacobi, Abel, Weierstrass, etc. Our book is no exception. In addition
to our debt to these mathematicians of a previous era, the present work has
been influenced by many contemporary mathematicians.
At the outset we record our indebtedness to our teachers Lipman Bers and
Harry Ernest Rauch, who taught us a great deal of what we know about this
subject, and who along with Lars V. Ahlfors are responsible for the modern
rebirth of the theory of Riemann surfaces. Second, we record our gratitude
to our colleagues whose theorems we have freely written down without attri-
bution. In particular, some of the material in Chapter III is the work of
Henrik H. Martens, and some of the material in Chapters V and VI ultimately
goes back to Robert D. M. Accola and Joseph Lewittes.
We thank several colleagues who have read and criticized earlier versions
of the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions: Bernard Maskit,
Henry Laufer, Uri Srebro, Albert Marden, and Frederick P. Gardiner. The
errors in the final version are, however, due only to the authors. We also
thank the secretaries who typed the various versions: Carole Alberghine and
Estella Shivers.

August, 1979 H. M. FARKAS I. KRA

Contents

Commonly Used Symbols xi

CHAPTER 0
An Overview
0.1 Topological Aspects, Uniformization, and Fuchsian Groups 2
0.2 Algebraic Functions 4
0.3. Abelian Varieties 6
0.4. More Analytic Aspects 7

CHAPTER I
Riemann Surfaces 9

1.1. Definitions and Examples 9

1.2. Topology of Riemann Surfaces 13
1.3. Differential Forms 19
IA. Integration Formulae 26

CHAPTER II
Existence Theorems 30
11.1. Hilbert Space Theory-A Quick Review 30
11.2. Weyl's Lemma 31
11.3. The Hilbert Space of Square Integrable Forms 37
11.4. Harmonic Differentials 43
11.5. Meromorphic Functions and Differentials 48

CHAPTER III
Compact Riemann Surfaces 52

111.1. Intersection Theory on Compact Surfaces 52

111.2. Harmonic and Analytic Differentials on Compact Surfaces 54
I1I.3. Bilinear Relations 62
IlIA. Divisors and the Riemann-Roch Theorem 67
I1I.5. Applications of the Riemann-Roch Theorem 76
111.6. Abel's Theorem and the Jacobi Inversion Problem 86
I1I.7. Hyperelliptic Riemann Surfaces 93
111.8. Special Divisors on Compact Surfaces 103
111.9. Multivalued Functions 119
x Contents

IILlO. Projective Imbeddings 129

IIUL More on the Jacobian Variety 132

CHAPTER IV
Uniformization lSI
IV.l. More on Harmonic Functions (A Quick Review) lSI
IV.2. Subharmonic Functions and Perron's Method 156
IV.3. A Classification of Riemann Surfaces 163
IVA. The Uniformization Theorem for Simply Connected Surfaces 179
IV.5. Uniformization of Arbitrary Riemann Surfaces 188
IV.6. The Exceptional Riemann Surfaces 192
IV.7. Two Problems on Moduli 196
IV.8. Riemannian Metrics 198
IV.9. Discontinuous Groups and Branched Coverings 205
IV.IO. Rieman~och-A Alternate Approach 222
IV.Il. Algebraic Function Fields in One Variable 226

CHAPTER V
Automorphisms of Compact Surfaces-Elementary Theory 241
V.l. Hurwitz's Theorem 241
V.2. Representations of the Automorphism Group on Spaces of
Differentials 252
V.3. Representations of Aut M on H 1 (M) 269
VA. The Exceptional Riemann Surfaces 276

CHAPTER VI
Theta Functions 280

VI.l. The Riemann Theta Function 280

VI.2. The Theta Functions Associated with a Riemann Surface 286
VU. The Theta Divisor 291

CHAPTER VII
Examples 301
VII. I.Hyperelliptic Surfaces (Once Again) 301
VII.2. Relations among Quadratic Differentials 311
VIU. Examples of Non-hyperelliptic Surfaces 315
VIlA. Branch Points of Hyperelliptic Surfaces as Holomorphic Functions
of the Periods 326
VII.5. Examples of Prym Differentials 329

Bibliography 330

Index 333
Commonly Used Symbols

integers
rationals
real numbers
IRn n-dimensional real Euclidean spaces
en n-dimensional complex Euclidean spaces
Re real part
1m imaginary part
1·1 absolute value
infinitely differentiable (function or differential)
Yfq(M) linear space of holm orphic q-differentials on M
.ff(M) field of meromorphic functions on M
deg degree of divisor or map
L(D) linear space of the divisor D
r(D) dim L(D) = dimension of D
Q(D) space of meromorphic abelian differentials of the divisor D
i(D) dim Q(D) = index of specialty of D
[] greatest integer in
c(D) Clifford index of D
ordpf order of f at P
nl(M) fundamental group of M
H1(M) first (integral) homology group of M
J(M) Jacobian variety of M
n period matrix of M
integral divisors of degree n on M
{D E Mn;r(D-1):::o-: r + I}
image of Mn in J(M)
image of M~ in J(M)
canonical divisor
vector of Riemann constants (usually)
transpose of the matrix X (vectors are usually written as columns;
thus for x E IR n, tx is a row vector)