Geometry of A_g and Its Compactifications

Abstract

In this survey we give a brief introduction to, and review the progress made in the last decade in understanding the geometry of the moduli spaces A_g of principally polarized abelian varieties and its compactifications. Topics surveyed include: compactifications; birational geometry: nef and effective cones, canonical models; homology, Chow rings and intersection theory; and subvarieties of moduli spaces. We also discuss some open problems and possible further directions. This is an expanded and updated version of the talk given at the 2005 Summer Institute for Algebraic Geometry