Some results about the projective normality of abelian varieties

We reduce the problem of the projective normality of polarized abelian varieties to check the rank of very explicit matrices. This allows us to prove some results on normal generation of primitive line bundles on abelian threefolds and fourfolds. We also give two situations where the projective normality always fails. Finally we make some conjecture. Received: 1 September 2004; revised: 10 March 2005