Deformation quantization in algebraic geometry

We study deformation quantizations of the structure sheaf O_X of a smooth algebraic variety X in characteristic 0. Our main result is that when X is D-affine, any formal Poisson structure on X determines a deformation quantization of O_X (canonically, up to gauge equivalence). This is an algebro-geometric analogue of Kontsevich's celebrated result.     

Unramified Brauer group of the moduli spaces of PGL r (ℂ)-bundles over curves

Let X be an irreducible smooth complex projective curve of genus g, with g ≥ 2. Let N be a connected component of the moduli space of semistable principal PGL _r (?)-bundles over X; it is a normal unirational complex projective variety. We prove that the Brauer group of a desingularization of N is trivial.     

Seidel elements and mirror transformations

The goal of this article is to give a precise relation between the mirror symmetry transformation of Givental and the Seidel elements for a smooth projective toric variety X with ?K _X nef. We show that the Seidel elements entirely determine the mirror transformation and mirror coordinates.     

Arc Spaces and Equivariant Cohomology

We present a new geometric interpretation of equivariant cohomology in which one replaces a smooth, complex G-variety X by its associated arc space J _∞ X, with its induced G-action. This not only allows us to obtain geometric classes in equivariant cohomology of arbitrarily high degree, but also provides more flexibility for equivariantly deforming classes and geometrically interpreting multiplication in the equivariant cohomology ring. Under appropriate hypotheses, we obtain explicit bijections between $ \mathbb{Z} $ -bases for the equivariant cohomology rings of smooth varieties related by an equivariant, proper birational map. We also show that self-intersection classes can be represented as classes of contact loci, under certain restrictions on singularities of subvarieties. We give several applications. Motivated by the relation between self-intersection and contact loci, we define higher-order equivariant multiplicities, generalizing the equivariant multiplicities of Brion and Rossmann; these are shown to be local singularity invariants, and computed in some cases. We also present geometric $ \mathbb{Z} $ -bases for the equivariant cohomology rings of a smooth toric variety (with respect to the dense torus) and a partial flag variety (with respect to the general linear group).     

Syzygies of projective bundles

In this paper we study defining equations and syzygies among them of projective bundles. We prove that for a given p≥0, if a vector bundle on a smooth complex projective variety is sufficiently ample, then the embedding given by the tautological line bundle satisfies property N_p.     

Abelianization of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">F</Emphasis>-divided fundamental group scheme

Let (X , x ₀) be a pointed smooth proper variety defined over an algebraically closed field. The Albanese morphism for (X , x ₀) produces a homomorphism from the abelianization of the F-divided fundamental group scheme of X to the F-divided fundamental group of the Albanese variety of X. We prove that this homomorphism is surjective with finite kernel. The kernel is also described.     

Generic vanishing index and the birationality of the bicanonical map of irregular varieties

We prove that any smooth complex projective variety with generic vanishing index bigger or equal than 2 has birational bicanonical map. Therefore, if X is a smooth complex projective variety φ with maximal Albanese dimension and non-birational bicanonical map, then the Albanese image of X is fibred by subvarieties of codimension at most 1 of an abelian subvariety of Alb X.     

Fragmented deformations of primitive multiple curves

A primitive multiple curve is a Cohen-Macaulay irreducible projective curve Y that can be locally embedded in a smooth surface, and such that Y _red is smooth. We study the deformations of Y to curves with smooth irreducible components, when the number of components is maximal (it is then the multiplicity n of Y). We are particularly interested in deformations to n disjoint smooth irreducible components, which are called fragmented deformations. We describe them completely. We give also a characterization of primitive multiple curves having a fragmented deformation.     

Smooth surfaces in smooth fourfolds with vanishing first Chern class

According to a conjecture attributed to Hartshorne and Lichtenbaum and proven by Ellingsrud and Peskine [18], the smooth rational surfaces in ${\mathbb{P}}^4$ belong to only finitely many families. We formulate and study a collection of analogous problems in which ${\mathbb{P}}^4$ is replaced by a smooth fourfold X with vanishing first integral Chern class. We embed such X into a smooth ambient variety and count families of smooth surfaces which arise in X from the ambient variety. We obtain various finiteness results in such settings. The central technique is the introduction of a new numerical invariant for smooth surfaces in smooth fourfolds with vanishing first Chern class.     

Frobenius splitting and geometry of G-Schubert varieties

Let X be an equivariant embedding of a connected reductive group G over an algebraically closed field k of positive characteristic. Let B denote a Borel subgroup of G. A G-Schubert variety in X is a subvariety of the form diag(G)⋅V, where V is a B×B-orbit closure in X. In the case where X is the wonderful compactification of a group of adjoint type, the G-Schubert varieties are the closures of Lusztig's G-stable pieces. We prove that X admits a Frobenius splitting which is compatible with all G-Schubert varieties. Moreover, when X is smooth, projective and toroidal, then any G-Schubert variety in X admits a stable Frobenius splitting along an ample divisors. Although this indicates that G-Schubert varieties have nice singularities we present an example of a nonnormal G-Schubert variety in the wonderful compactification of a group of type G₂. Finally we also extend the Frobenius splitting results to the more general class of R-Schubert varieties.     

Free algebras in discriminator varieties

We investigate V-free algebras onn generators,F _n =F _r (V, n), where V is a discriminator variety and, more specifically, where V is a variety of relation algebras or of cylindricalgebras. Sample questions are: (a) IsF _n+1 embeddable inF _n ? (b) DoesF _n contain an n-element set that generates it non-freely? The answer to (a) is affirmative in some varieties of relation algebras, but it is negative in every congruence extensile variety in which some nontrivial finite member is an absolute retract. The answer to (b) is affirmative in every variety of relation algebras that contains the full algebra of relations on an infinite set.     

Smooth and palindromic Schubert varieties in affine Grassmannians

We completely determine the smooth and palindromic Schubert varieties in affine Grassmannians, in all Lie types. We show that an affine Schubert variety is smooth if and only if it is a closed parabolic orbit. In particular, there are only finitely many smooth affine Schubert varieties in a given Lie type. An affine Schubert variety is palindromic if and only if it is a closed parabolic orbit, a chain, one of an infinite family of “spiral” varieties in type A, or a certain 9-dimensional singular variety in type B ₃. In particular, except in type A there are only finitely many palindromic affine Schubert varieties in a fixed Lie type. Moreover, in types D and E an affine Schubert variety is smooth if and only if it is palindromic; in all other types there are singular palindromics. The proofs are for the most part combinatorial. The main tool is a variant of Mozes’ numbers game, which we use to analyze the Bruhat order on the coroot lattice. In the proof of the smoothness theorem we also use Chevalley’s cup product formula.     

On the fundamental group-scheme

We show that the fundamental group-scheme of a separably rationally connected variety defined over an algebraically closed field is trivial. Let X be a geometrically irreducible smooth projective variety defined over a finite field k admitting a k-rational point. Let {En,σn}_n?0 be a flat principal G-bundle over X, where G is a reductive linear algebraic group defined over k. We show that there is a positive integer a such that the principal G-bundle is isomorphic to E₀, where FX is the absolute Frobenius morphism of X. From this it follows that E₀ is given by a representation of the fundamental group-scheme of X in G.     

Desingularization preserving stable simple normal crossings

The subject is partial resolution of singularities. Given an algebraic variety X (not necessarily equidimensional) in characteristic zero (or, more generally, a pair (X, D), where D is a divisor on X), we construct a functorial desingularization of all but stable simple normal crossings (stable-snc) singularities, by smooth blowings-up that preserve such singularities. A variety has stable simple normal crossings at a point if, locally, its irreducible components are smooth and transverse in some smooth embedding variety. We also show that our main assertion is false for more general simple normal crossings singularities.     

Unitary representations of the fundamental group of orbifolds

Let X be a smooth complex projective variety of dimension n and \(\mathcal {L}\) an ample line bundle on it. There is a well known bijective correspondence between the isomorphism classes of polystable vector bundles E on X with \(c_{1}(E) = 0 = c_{2} (E) \cdot c_{1} (\mathcal {L})^{n-2}\) and the equivalence classes of unitary representations of π₁(X). We show that this bijective correspondence extends to smooth orbifolds.     

A partial analog of the integrability theorem for distributions on p-adic spaces and applications

Let X be a smooth real algebraic variety. Let ξ be a distribution on it. One can define the singular support of ξ to be the singular support of the D _X -module generated by ξ (sometimes it is also called the characteristic variety). A powerful property of the singular support is that it is a coisotropic subvariety of T*X. This is the integrability theorem (see [KKS, Mal, Gab]). This theorem turned out to be useful in representation theory of real reductive groups (see, e.g., [AG4, AS, Say]). The aim of this paper is to give an analog of this theorem to the non-Archimedean case. The theory of D-modules is not available to us so we need a different definition of the singular support. We use the notion wave front set from [Hef] and define the singular support to be its Zariski closure. Then we prove that the singular support satisfies some property that we call weakly coisotropic, which is weaker than being coisotropic but is enough for some applications. We also prove some other properties of the singular support that were trivial in the Archimedean case (using the algebraic definition) but not obvious in the non-Archimedean case. We provide two applications of those results:

• a non-Archimedean analog of the results of [Say] concerning Gel’fand property of nice symmetric pairs
• a proof of multiplicity one theorems for GL _n which is uniform for all local fields. This theorem was proven for the non-Archimedean case in [AGRS] and for the Archimedean case in [AG4] and [SZ].

     

Singularities of Dual Varieties in Characteristic 3

We investigate singularities of a general plane section of the dual variety of a smooth projective variety, or more generally, the discriminant variety associated with a linear system of divisors on a smooth projective variety. We show that, in characteristic 3, singular points of E ₆-type take the place of ordinary cusps in characteristic 0.     

The Beilinson equivalence for differential operators

Let D be the ring of differential operators on a smooth irreducible affine variety X over C, or, more generally, the enveloping algebra of any locally free Lie algebroid on X. The category of finitely generated graded modules of the Rees algebra has a natural quotient category P_D which imitates the category of modules on Proj of a graded commutative ring. We show that the derived category D^b(P_D) is equivalent to the derived category of finitely generated modules of a sheaf of algebras E on X which is coherent over X. This generalizes the usual Beilinson equivalence for projective space, and also the Beilinson equivalence for differential operators on a smooth curve used by Ben-Zvi and Nevins in [6] to describe the moduli space of left ideals in D.     

Secant varieties of toric varieties

Let X_P be a smooth projective toric variety of dimension n embedded in P^r using all of the lattice points of the polytope P. We compute the dimension and degree of the secant variety . We also give explicit formulas in dimensions 2 and 3 and obtain partial results for the projective varieties X_A embedded using a set of lattice points A⊂P∩Zⁿ containing the vertices of P and their nearest neighbors.