ABSTRACT
Algebraic curves have found many applications in coding and cryptography since the discovery of the Goppa geometry codes [71]. There are quite a few standard books on algebraic curves [61, 76, 75, 117], although most of these books discuss curves over algebraically closed fields. For our purpose, we are interested primarily in algebraic curves over finite fields, in fact, preferably algebraic curves with explicit defining equations. In this chapter, a self-contained introduction to algebraic curves is given.
