Let
A be an abelian variety over a field
k. We define \operatorname{Pic}^0 (A) \subset \operatorname{Pic} (A) to be the subgroup of the
Picard group consisting of line bundles
L such that m^*L \cong p^*L \otimes q^*L, where m, p, q are the multiplication and projection maps A \times_k A \to A respectively. An element of \operatorname{Pic}^0(A) is called a
degree 0 line bundle on
A. To
A one then associates a
dual abelian variety Av (over the same field), which is the solution to the following
moduli problem. A family of degree 0 line bundles parametrized by a
k-variety
T is defined to be a line bundle
L on
A×
T such that • for all t \in T, the restriction of
L to
A×{
t} is a degree 0 line bundle, • the restriction of
L to {0}×
T is a trivial line bundle (here 0 is the identity of
A). Then there is a variety
Av and a line bundle P \to A \times A^\vee, called the Poincaré bundle, which is a family of degree 0 line bundles parametrized by
Av in the sense of the above definition. Moreover, this family is universal, that is, to any family
L parametrized by
T is associated a unique morphism
f:
T →
Av so that
L is isomorphic to the pullback of
P along the morphism 1A×
f:
A×
T →
A×
Av. Applying this to the case when
T is a point, we see that the points of
Av correspond to line bundles of degree 0 on
A, so there is a natural
group operation on
Av given by
tensor product of line bundles, which makes it into an abelian variety. In the language of
representable functors one can state the above result as follows. The contravariant functor, which associates to each
k-variety
T the set of families of degree 0 line bundles parametrised by
T and to each
k-morphism
f:
T →
T' the mapping induced by the pullback with
f, is representable. The universal element representing this functor is the pair (
Av,
P). This association is a duality in the sense that there is a
natural isomorphism between the double dual
Avv and
A (defined via the Poincaré bundle) and that it is
contravariant functorial, i.e. it associates to all morphisms
f:
A →
B dual morphisms
fv:
Bv →
Av in a compatible way. The
n-torsion of an abelian variety and the
n-torsion of its dual are
dual to each other when
n is coprime to the characteristic of the base. In general - for all
n - the
n-torsion
group schemes of dual abelian varieties are
Cartier duals of each other. This generalizes the
Weil pairing for elliptic curves. ==History==