Are there any general methods for computing fundamental group or singular cohomology (including the ring structure, hopefully) of a projective variety (over C of course), if given the equations defining the variety?


I seem to recall that, if the variety is smooth, we can compute the H^{p,q}'s by computer -- and thus the H^n's by Hodge decomposition -- is this correct? However this won't work if the variety is not smooth -- are there any techniques that work even for non-smooth things?


Also I seem to recall some argument that, at least if we restrict our attention to smooth things only, all varieties defined by polynomials of the same degrees will be homotopy equivalent. The homotopy should be gotten by slowly changing the coefficients of the polynomials. Is something like this true? Does some kind of argument like this work?



Computing fundamental groups and singular cohomology of projective varieties
This is an interesting question. To repeat some of the earlier answers, one should be able to get one's hands on a triangulation algorithmically using real algebro-geometric methods, and thereby compute singular cohomology and (a presentation for) the fundamental group. But this should probably be a last resort in practice. For smooth projective varieties, as people have noted, one can compute the Hodge numbers by writing down a presentation for the sheaf p-forms and then apply standard Groebner basis techniques to compute sheaf cohomology. This does work pretty well on a computer. For specific classes, there are better methods. For smooth complete intersections, there is a generating function for Hodge numbers due to Hirzebruch (SGA 7, exp XI), which is extremely efficient to use.


As for the fundamental group, if I had to compute it for a general smooth projective variety, I would probably use a Lefschetz pencil to write down a presentation.


For singular varieties, one can still define Hodge numbers using the mixed Hodge structure on cohomology. The sum of these numbers are still the Betti numbers. I expect these Hodge numbers are still computable, but it would somewhat unpleasant to write down a general algorithm. The first step is to build a simplicial resolution using resolution of singularities. My colleagues who know about resolutions assure me that this can be done algorithmically now days.


(This is my first reply in this forum. Hopefully it'll go through.)


