Configurations in abelian categories—I: Basic properties and moduli stacks

This is the first in a series of papers on configurations in an abelian category A. Given a finite partially ordered set (I,?), an (I,?)-configuration(σ,ι,π) is a finite collection of objects σ(J) and morphisms ι(J,K) or π(J,K):σ(J)→σ(K) in A satisfying some axioms, where J,K are subsets of I. Configurations describe how an object X in A decomposes into subobjects, and are useful for studying stability conditions on A.We define and motivate the idea of configurations, and explain some natural operations upon them—subconfigurations, quotient configurations, substitution, refinements and improvements. Then we study moduli spaces of (I,?)-configurations in A, and natural morphisms between them, using the theory of Artin stacks. We prove well-behaved moduli stacks exist when A is the abelian category of coherent sheaves on a projective scheme P, or of representations of a quiver Q.In the sequels, given a stability condition (τ,T,?) on A, we will show the moduli spaces of τ-(semi)stable objects or configurations are constructible subsets in the moduli stacks of all objects or configurations. We associate infinite-dimensional algebras of constructible functions to a quiver Q using the method of Ringel-Hall algebras, and define systems of invariants of P that ‘count’ τ-(semi)stable coherent sheaves on P and satisfy interesting identities.     

The Eilenberg-Watts theorem over schemes

We study obstructions to a direct limit preserving right exact functor F between categories of quasi-coherent sheaves on schemes being isomorphic to tensoring with a bimodule. When the domain scheme is affine, or if F is exact, all obstructions vanish and we recover the Eilenberg-Watts Theorem. This result is crucial to the proof that the noncommutative Hirzebruch surfaces constructed in C. Ingalls, D. Patrick (2002) [6] are noncommutative P¹-bundles in the sense of M. Van den Bergh [10].     

On the moduli of surfaces admitting genus two fibrations over elliptic curves

In this paper, we study the structure, deformations and the moduli spaces of complex projective surfaces admitting genus two fibrations over elliptic curves. We observe that a surface admitting a smooth fibration as above is elliptic, and we employ results on the moduli of polarized elliptic surfaces to construct moduli spaces of these smooth fibrations. In the case of nonsmooth fibrations, we relate the moduli spaces to the Hurwitz schemes of morphisms of degree n from elliptic curves to the modular curve X(d), d ≥ 3. Ultimately, we show that the moduli spaces in the nonsmooth case are fiber spaces over the affine line with fibers determined by the components of . Received: 30 August 2006     

Qregularity and an extension of the Evans-Griffiths criterion to vector bundles on quadrics

Here we define the concept of Qregularity for coherent sheaves on a smooth quadric hypersurface Q_n⊂Pⁿ⁺¹. In this setting we prove analogs of some classical properties. We compare the Qregularity of coherent sheaves on Q_n with the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of their extension by zero in Pⁿ⁺¹. We also classify the coherent sheaves with Qregularity −∞. We use our notion of Qregularity in order to prove an extension of the Evans-Griffiths criterion to vector bundles on quadrics. In particular, we get a new and simple proof of Knörrer’s characterization of ACM bundles.     

Generic noncommutative surfaces

We study a class of noncommutative surfaces, and their higher dimensional analogs, which come from generic subalgebras of twisted homogeneous coordinate rings of projective space. Such rings provide answers to several open questions in noncommutative projective geometry. Specifically, these rings R are the first known graded algebras over a field k which are noetherian but not strongly noetherian: in other words, R⊗_kB is not noetherian for some choice of commutative noetherian extension ring B. This answers a question of Artin, Small, and Zhang. The rings R are also maximal orders, but they do not satisfy all of the χ conditions of Artin and Zhang. In particular, they satisfy the χ₁ condition but not χ_i for i?2, answering a question of Stafford and Zhang and a question of Stafford and Van den Bergh. Finally, we show that the noncommutative scheme R-proj has finite global dimension.     

Integral generators for the cohomology ring of moduli spaces of sheaves over Poisson surfaces

Let M be a smooth and compact moduli space of stable coherent sheaves on a projective surface S with an effective (or trivial) anti-canonical line bundle. We find generators for the cohomology ring of M, with integral coefficients. When S is simply connected and a universal sheaf E exists over S×M, then its class [E] admits a Künneth decomposition as a class in the tensor product of the topological K-rings. The generators are the Chern classes of the Künneth factors of [E] in . The general case is similar.     

Some moduli stacks of symplectic bundles on a curve are rational

Let C be a smooth projective curve of genus g?2 over a field k. Given a line bundle L on C, let Sympl2n,L be the moduli stack of vector bundles E of rank 2n on C endowed with a nowhere degenerate symplectic form up to scalars. We prove that this stack is birational to BGm×As for some s if deg(E)=n⋅deg(L) is odd and C admits a rational point P∈C(k) as well as a line bundle ξ of degree 0 with ξ⊗2?OC. It follows that the corresponding coarse moduli scheme of Ramanathan-stable symplectic bundles is rational in this case.     

Murphy’s law in algebraic geometry: Badly-behaved deformation spaces

We consider the question: “How bad can the deformation space of an object be?” The answer seems to be: “Unless there is some a priori reason otherwise, the deformation space may be as bad as possible.” We show this for a number of important moduli spaces. More precisely, every singularity of finite type over ? (up to smooth parameters) appears on: the Hilbert scheme of curves in projective space; and the moduli spaces of smooth projective general-type surfaces (or higher-dimensional varieties), plane curves with nodes and cusps, stable sheaves, isolated threefold singularities, and more. The objects themselves are not pathological, and are in fact as nice as can be: the curves are smooth, the surfaces are automorphism-free and have very ample canonical bundle, the stable sheaves are torsion-free of rank 1, the singularities are normal and Cohen-Macaulay, etc. This justifies Mumford’s philosophy that even moduli spaces of well-behaved objects should be arbitrarily bad unless there is an a priori reason otherwise. Thus one can construct a smooth curve in projective space whose deformation space has any given number of components, each with any given singularity type, with any given non-reduced behavior. Similarly one can give a surface over $\mathbb{F}_{p}We consider the question: “How bad can the deformation space of an object be?” The answer seems to be: “Unless there is some a priori reason otherwise, the deformation space may be as bad as possible.” We show this for a number of important moduli spaces. More precisely, every singularity of finite type over ℤ (up to smooth parameters) appears on: the Hilbert scheme of curves in projective space; and the moduli spaces of smooth projective general-type surfaces (or higher-dimensional varieties), plane curves with nodes and cusps, stable sheaves, isolated threefold singularities, and more. The objects themselves are not pathological, and are in fact as nice as can be: the curves are smooth, the surfaces are automorphism-free and have very ample canonical bundle, the stable sheaves are torsion-free of rank 1, the singularities are normal and Cohen-Macaulay, etc. This justifies Mumford’s philosophy that even moduli spaces of well-behaved objects should be arbitrarily bad unless there is an a priori reason otherwise. Thus one can construct a smooth curve in projective space whose deformation space has any given number of components, each with any given singularity type, with any given non-reduced behavior. Similarly one can give a surface over that lifts to ℤ/p⁷ but not ℤ/p⁸. (Of course the results hold in the holomorphic category as well.) It is usually difficult to compute deformation spaces directly from obstruction theories. We circumvent this by relating them to more tractable deformation spaces via smooth morphisms. The essential starting point is Mn?v’s universality theorem. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000) 14B12, 14C05, 14J10, 14H50, 14B07, 14N20, 14D22, 14B05     

Degree of the divisor of solutions of a differential equation on a projective variety

Using the data schemes from [1] we give a rigorous definition of algebraic differential equations on the complex projective space Pⁿ. For an algebraic subvariety S?Pⁿ, we present an explicit formula for the degree of the divisor of solutions of a differential equation on S and give some examples of applications. We extend the technique and result to the real case.     

Moduli of reflexive sheaves on smooth projective 3-folds

We compute the expected dimension of the moduli space of torsion-free rank 2 sheaves at a point corresponding to a stable reflexive sheaf, and give conditions for the existence of a perfect tangent-obstruction complex on a class of smooth projective threefolds; this class includes Fano and Calabi-Yau threefolds. We also explore both local and global relationships between moduli spaces of reflexive rank 2 sheaves and the Hilbert scheme of curves.     

Moduli of Quaternionic Superminimal Immersions of 2-Spheres into Quaternionic Projective Spaces

The aim of this paper is to describe the moduli spaces of degree d quaternionic superminimal maps from 2-spheres to quaternionic projective spaces HPn. We show that such moduli spaces have the structure of projectivized fibre products and are connected quasi-projective varieties of dimension 2nd + 2n + 2. This generalizes known results for spaces of harmonic 2-spheres in S⁴.     

Deformations of the generalised Picard bundle

Let X be a nonsingular algebraic curve of genus g?3, and let M_ξ denote the moduli space of stable vector bundles of rank n?2 and degree d with fixed determinant ξ over X such that n and d are coprime. We assume that if g=3 then n?4 and if g=4 then n?3, and suppose further that n₀, d₀ are integers such that n₀?1 and nd₀+n₀d>nn₀(2g-2). Let E be a semistable vector bundle over X of rank n₀ and degree d₀. The generalised Picard bundle W_ξ(E) is by definition the vector bundle over M_ξ defined by the direct image where U_ξ is a universal vector bundle over X×M_ξ. We obtain an inversion formula allowing us to recover E from W_ξ(E) and show that the space of infinitesimal deformations of W_ξ(E) is isomorphic to H¹(X,End(E)). This construction gives a locally complete family of vector bundles over M_ξ parametrised by the moduli space M(n₀,d₀) of stable bundles of rank n₀ and degree d₀ over X. If (n₀,d₀)=1 and W_ξ(E) is stable for all E∈M(n₀,d₀), the construction determines an isomorphism from M(n₀,d₀) to a connected component M⁰ of a moduli space of stable sheaves over M_ξ. This applies in particular when n₀=1, in which case M⁰ is isomorphic to the Jacobian J of X as a polarised variety. The paper as a whole is a generalisation of results of Kempf and Mukai on Picard bundles over J, and is also related to a paper of Tyurin on the geometry of moduli of vector bundles.     

On real moduli spaces of holomorphic bundles over M-curves

Let F be a genus g curve and σ:F→F a real structure with the maximal possible number of fixed circles. We study the real moduli space N^′=Fix(σ#) where σ#:N→N is the induced real structure on the moduli space N of stable holomorphic bundles of rank 2 over F with fixed non-trivial determinant. In particular, we calculate H^?(N^′,Z) in the case of g=2, generalizing Thaddeus' approach to computing H^?(N,Z).     

Deformation theory of objects in homotopy and derived categories III: Abelian categories

This is the third paper in a series. In Part I we developed a deformation theory of objects in homotopy and derived categories of DG categories. Here we show how this theory can be used to study deformations of objects in homotopy and derived categories of abelian categories. Then we consider examples from (noncommutative) algebraic geometry. In particular, we study noncommutative Grassmanians that are true noncommutative moduli spaces of structure sheaves of projective subspaces in projective spaces.     

On interpolation of interpolating sequences

Let A be a uniform algebra on the compact space X and σ a probability measure on X. We define the Hardy spaces H^P(σ) and the H^P(σ) interpolating sequences S in the p-spectrum M_p of σ. Under some structural hypotheses on (A, σ), we prove that if a sequence S ⊂ M_p is H^P(σ) interpolating, then it is H^s(σ) interpolating for s < p. In the special case of the unit ball B of ?ⁿ this answers a natural question asked in [8].     

Torus fixed points of moduli spaces of stable bundles of rank three

By a result of Klyachko the Euler characteristic of moduli spaces of stable bundles of rank two on the projective plane is determined. Using similar methods we extend this result to bundles of rank three. The fixed point components correspond to moduli spaces of the subspace quiver. Moreover, the stability condition is given by a certain system of linear inequalities so that the generating function of the Euler characteristic can be determined explicitly.     

Compactified Jacobians of curves with spine decompositions

A curve, that is, a connected, reduced, projective scheme of dimension 1 over an algebraically closed field, admits two types of compactifications of its (generalized) Jacobian: the moduli schemes of P-quasistable torsion-free, rank-1 sheaves and Seshadri’s moduli schemes of S-equivalence classes of semistable torsion-free, rank-1 sheaves. Both are constructed with respect to a choice of polarization. The former are fine moduli spaces which were shown to be complete; here we show that they are actually projective. The latter are just coarse moduli spaces. Here we give a sufficient condition for when these two types of moduli spaces are equal. Eduardo Esteves is Supported by CNPq, Processos 301117/04-7 and 470761/06-7, by CNPq/FAPERJ, Processo E-26/171.174/2003, and by the Institut Mittag–Leffler (Djursholm, Sweden).