2/26/2009

Dieter Kotschick
Munchen, IAS

Topologically invariant Chern numbers of projective varieties

In 1954 Hirzebruch asked which linear combinations of Chern numbers are topological invariants of smooth complex projective varieties. Until recently, this problem was wide open, with few non-trivial results. We give a complete solution in arbitrary dimensions. An interesting feature of this solution is how it is derived from the well known case of complex dimension two, which at first sight looks rather special and exceptional.