Dual abelian variety

In mathematics, a dual abelian variety can be defined from an abelian variety A, defined over a field K.

To an abelian variety A over a field k, one associates a dual abelian variety A^v (over the same field), which is the solution to the following moduli problem. A family of degree 0 line bundles parametrized by a k-variety T is defined to be a line bundle L on A×T such that

Then there is a variety A^v and a family of degree 0 line bundles P, the Poincaré bundle, parametrized by A^v such that a family L on T is associated a unique morphism f: T → A^v so that L is isomorphic to the pullback of P along the morphism 1_A×f: A×T → A×A^v. Applying this to the case when T is a point, we see that the points of A^v correspond to line bundles of degree 0 on A, so there is a natural group operation on A^v given by tensor product of line bundles, which makes it into an abelian variety.

In the language of representable functors one can state the above result as follows. The contravariant functor, which associates to each k-variety T the set of families of degree 0 line bundles on T and to each k-morphism f: T → T' the mapping induced by the pullback with f, is representable. The universal element representing this functor is the pair (A^v, P).

This association is a duality in the sense that there is a natural isomorphism between the double dual A^vv and A (defined via the Poincaré bundle) and that it is contravariant functorial, i.e. it associates to all morphisms f: A → B dual morphisms f^v: B^v → A^v in a compatible way. The n-torsion of an abelian variety and the n-torsion of its dual are dual to each other when n is coprime to the characteristic of the base. In general - for all n - the n-torsion group schemes of dual abelian varieties are Cartier duals of each other. This generalizes the Weil pairing for elliptic curves.

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