Transcendental aspects of algebraic cycles

the long version

This is a collection of lecture notes from the Summer School 'Cycles Algébriques; Aspects Transcendents, Grenoble 2001'. The topics range from introductory lectures on algebraic cycles to more advanced material. The advanced lectures are grouped under three headings: Lawson (co)homology, motives and motivic cohomology and Hodge theoretic invariants of cycles. Among the topics treated are: cycle spaces, Chow topology, morphic cohomology, Grothendieck motives, Chow-Künneth decompositions of the diagonal, motivic cohomology via higher Chow groups, the Hodge conjecture for certain fourfolds, an effective version of Nori's connectivity theorem, Beilinson's Hodge and Tate conjecture for open complete intersections. As the lectures were intended for non-specialists many examples have been included to illustrate the theory. As such this book will be ideal for graduate students or researchers seeking a modern introduction to the state-of-the-art theory in this subject.