The Bogomolov--Pantev resolution, an expository account

Abstract

This is a paper based on a talk given at the Warwick Symposium on Algebraic Geometry in 1996. The resolution of singularities given by F. Bogomolov and A. Pantev (arXiv:math.AG/9603019) is presented in a self-contained and "elementary" manner. The main result is that given a variety and a proper closed subvariety, there is a projective birational morphism from a smooth variety to the given variety so that the inverse image of the given closed subvariety and the exceptional locus are sub-divisors of a divisor with simple normal crossings.