Intersection Theory in Algebraic Geometry
William Fulton in Intersection Theory (1984) writes
- ... if A and B are subvarieties of a non-singular variety X, the intersection product A.B should be an equivalence class of algebraic cycles closely related to the geometry of how A∩B, A and B are situated in X. Two extreme cases have been most familiar. If the intersection is proper, i.e. dim(A∩B) = dim A + dim B − dim X, then A.B is a linear combination of the irreducible components of A∩B, with coefficients the intersection multiplicities. At the other extreme, if A = B is a non-singular subvariety, the self-intersection formula says that A.B is represented by the top Chern class of the normal bundle of A in X.
To give a definition, in the general case, of the intersection multiplicity was the major concern of André Weil's 1946 book Foundations of Algebraic Geometry. Work in the 1920s of B. L. van der Waerden had already addressed the question; in the Italian school of algebraic geometry the ideas were well known, but foundational questions were not addressed in the same spirit.
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