Divisorial Zariski decompositions on compact complex manifolds

Using currents with minimal singularities, we introduce pointwise minimal multiplicities for a real pseudo-effective (1,1)-cohomology class α on a compact complex manifold X, which are the local obstructions to the numerical effectivity of α. The negative part of α is then defined as the real effective divisor N(α) whose multiplicity along a prime divisor D is just the generic multiplicity of α along D, and we get in that way a divisorial Zariski decomposition of α into the sum of a class Z(α) which is nef in codimension 1 and the class of its negative part N(α), which is an exceptional divisor in the sense that it is very rigidly embedded in X. The positive parts Z(α) generate a modified nef cone, and the pseudo-effective cone is shown to be locally polyhedral away from the modified nef cone, with extremal rays generated by exceptional divisors. We then treat the case of a surface and a hyper-Kähler manifold in some detail. Using the intersection form (respectively the Beauville-Bogomolov form), we characterize the modified nef cone and the exceptional divisors. The divisorial Zariski decomposition is orthogonal, and is thus a rational decomposition, which fact accounts for the usual existence statement of a Zariski decomposition on a projective surface, which is thus extended to the hyper-Kähler case. Finally, we explain how the divisorial Zariski decomposition of (the first Chern class of) a big line bundle on a projective manifold can be characterized in terms of the asymptotics of the linear series |kL| as k→∞.