Evangelos Mouroukos,
An introduction to Deligne's Hodge Theory


The classical Hodge theorem asserts that the cohomology groups of a compact Kaehler manifold (e.g. a non-singular complex projective variety) have a remarkable property: the decomposition of a differential form according to (p,q)-type descends to cohomology. For an arbitrary complex algebraic variety (not necessarily non-singular or projective) Deligne showed that the cohomology groups enjoy a much richer structure, encoded in the data of what he called a mixed Hodge structure. This theory has had numerous applications to the topology of algebraic varieties. My plan is to give an elementary introduction to Deligne's theory, some computations of mixed Hodge structures and some suggestions of how to use them in practice.