On a numerical characterization of non-simple principally polarized abelian varieties

Abstract

To every abelian subvariety of a principally polarized abelian variety \((A, \mathcal {L})\) we canonically associate a numerical class in the Neron–Severi group of A. We prove that these classes are characterized by their intersection numbers with \( \mathcal {L}\); moreover, the cycle class induced by an abelian subvariety in the Chow ring of A modulo algebraic equivalence can be described in terms of its numerical divisor class. Over the field of complex numbers, this correspondence gives way to an explicit description of the (coarse) moduli space that parametrizes non-simple principally polarized abelian varieties with a fixed numerical class.