The geometry of Siegel modular varieties

Abstract

This is a survey article about Siegel modular varieties over the complex numbers. It is written mostly from the point of view of moduli of abelian varieties, especially surfaces. We cover compactification of Siegel modular varieties; classification of the compactified varieties by Kodaira dimension, etc.; moduli of abelian surfaces and especially applications of the lifting of Jacobi forms to modular forms; projective models of some special Siegel modular 3-folds; non-principally polarized abelian surfaces; and constructing degenerating families of abelian varieties.