For
compact Kähler manifolds the dimension of the Albanese variety is the
Hodge number h^{1,0}, the dimension of the space of
differentials of the first kind on V, which for surfaces is called the
irregularity of a surface. In terms of
differential forms, any holomorphic 1-form on V is a
pullback of translation-invariant 1-form on the Albanese variety, coming from the holomorphic
cotangent space of \operatorname{Alb}(V) at its identity element. Just as for the curve case, by choice of a
base point on V (from which to 'integrate'), an
Albanese morphism : V \to \operatorname{Alb}(V) is defined, along which the 1-forms pull back. This morphism is unique up to a translation on the Albanese variety. For varieties over fields of positive characteristic, the dimension of the Albanese variety may be less than the Hodge numbers h^{1,0} and h^{0,1} (which need not be equal). To see the former note that the Albanese variety is dual to the
Picard variety, whose tangent space at the identity is given by H^1(X, O_X). That \dim \operatorname{Alb}(X) \leq h^{1,0} is a result of
Jun-ichi Igusa in the bibliography. ==Roitman's theorem==