Symmetries of Compact Riemann Surfaces (Lecture Notes in Mathematics, Vol. 2007)

The content of this monograph is situated in the intersection of important branches of mathematics like the theory of one complex variable, algebraic geometry, low dimensional topology and, from the point of view of the techniques used, com- natorial group theory. The main tool comes from the Uniformization Theorem for Riemannsurfaces,whichrelatesthetopologyofRiemannsurfacesandholomorphic or antiholomorphic actions on them to the algebra of classical cocompact Fuchsian groups or, more generally, non-euclidean crystallographic groups. Foundations of this relationship were established by A. M. Macbeath in the early sixties and dev- oped later by, among others, D. Singerman. Another important result in Riemann surface theory is the connection between Riemannsurfacesandtheir symmetrieswith complexalgebraiccurvesandtheirreal forms. Namely, there is a well known functorial bijective correspondence between compact Riemann surfaces and smooth, irreducible complex projective curves. The fact that a Riemann surface has a symmetry means, under this equivalence, that the corresponding complex algebraic curve has a real form, that is, it is the complex- cation of a real algebraic curve. Moreover, symmetries which are non-conjugate in the full group of automorphisms of the Riemann surface, correspond to real forms which are birationally non-isomorphic over the reals. Furthermore, the set of points xedbyasymmetryishomeomorphictoaprojectivesmoothmodeloftherealform.

This monograph deals with symmetries of compact Riemann surfaces. A symmetry of a compact Riemann surface S is an antianalytic involution of S. It is well known that Riemann surfaces exhibiting symmetry correspond to algebraic curves which can be defined over the field of real numbers. In this monograph we consider three topics related to the topology of symmetries, namely the number of conjugacy classes of symmetries, the numbers of ovals of symmetries and the symmetry types of Riemann surfaces.