Quasi-projective reduction of toric varieties

We define a quasi–projective reduction of a complex algebraic variety X to be a regular map from X to a quasi–projective variety that is universal with respect to regular maps from X to quasi–projective varieties. A toric quasi–projective reduction is the analogous notion in the category of toric varieties. For a given toric variety X we first construct a toric quasi–projective reduction. Then we show that X has a quasi–projective reduction if and only if its toric quasi–projective reduction is surjective. We apply this result to characterize when the action of a subtorus on a quasi–projective toric variety admits a categorical quotient in the category of quasi–projective varieties. Received October 29, 1998; in final form December 28, 1998