Complex projective space

In mathematics, complex projective space is the projective space with respect to the field of complex numbers. By analogy, whereas the points of a real projective space label the lines through the origin of a real Euclidean space, the points of a complex projective space label the complex lines through the origin of a complex Euclidean space (see below for an intuitive account). Formally, a complex projective space is the space of complex lines through the origin of an (n+1)-dimensional complex vector space. The space is denoted variously as P(Cⁿ⁺¹), P_n(C) or CPⁿ. When n = 1, the complex projective space CP¹ is the Riemann sphere, and when n = 2, CP² is the complex projective plane (see there for a more elementary discussion).

Complex projective space was first introduced by von Staudt (1860) as an instance of what was then known as the "geometry of position", a notion originally due to Lazare Carnot, a kind of synthetic geometry that included other projective geometries as well. Subsequently, near the turn of the 20th century it became clear to the Italian school of algebraic geometry that the complex projective spaces were the most natural domains in which to consider the solutions of polynomial equations – algebraic varieties (Grattan-Guinness 2005, pp. 445–446). In modern times, both the topology and geometry of complex projective space are well-understood and closely related to that of the sphere. Indeed, in a certain sense the (2n+1)-sphere can be regarded as a family of circles parametrized by CPⁿ: this is the Hopf fibration. Complex projective space carries a (Kähler) metric, called the Fubini–Study metric, in terms of which it is a Hermitian symmetric space of rank 1.

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