Seshadri constants on ruled surfaces: the rational and the elliptic cases

We study the Seshadri constants on geometrically ruled surfaces. The unstable case is completely solved. Moreover, we give some bounds for the stable case. We apply these results to compute the Seshadri constant of the rational and elliptic ruled surfaces. Both cases are completely determined. The elliptic case provides an interesting picture of how particular is the behavior of the Seshadri constants.