Introduction to Equivariant Cohomology in Algebraic Geometry (IMPANGA 2010)

Abstract

These are lecture notes from the IMPANGA 2010 Summer School. The lectures survey some of the main features of equivariant cohomology at an introductory level. The first part is an overview, including basic definitions and examples. In the second lecture, I discuss one of the most useful aspects of the theory: the possibility of localizing at fixed points without losing information. The third lecture focuses on Grassmannians, and describes some recent positivity results about their equivariant cohomology rings.