Algebraic Surfaces in Positive Characteristic

Christian Liedtke

Published 2009-12-21, updated 2013-04-06Version 4

These notes are an introduction to and an overview of the theory of algebraic surfaces over algebraically closed fields of positive characteristic. After some background in characteristic-p-geometry, we sketch the Kodaira-Enriques classification. Next, we turn to more special characteristic-p topics, and end by lifting results and applications to characteristic zero. We assume that the reader has a background in complex geometry and has seen the Kodaira-Enriques classification of complex surfaces before.