This collection of surveys and research articles explores a fascinating class of varieties:
Beauville surfaces. It is the first time that these objects are discussed from the points of
view of algebraic geometry as well as group theory. The book also includes various open
problems and conjectures related to these surfaces.Beauville surfaces are a class of rigid
regular surfaces of general type which can be described in a purely algebraic combinatoric
way. They play an important role in different fields of mathematics like algebraic geometry
group theory and number theory. The notion of Beauville surface was introduced by Fabrizio
Catanese in 2000 and after the first systematic study of these surfaces by Ingrid Bauer
Fabrizio Catanese and Fritz Grunewald there has been an increasing interest in the
subject.These proceedings reflect the topics of the lectures presented during the workshop
'Beauville surfaces and groups 2012' held at Newcastle University UKin June 2012. This
conference brought together for the first time experts of different fields of mathematics
interested in Beauville surfaces.
