We prove that a Cohen-Macaulay normal variety $X$ has Du Bois singularities if and only if $π_*ω_{X'}(G) \simeq ω_X$ for a log resolution $π: X' \to X$, where $G$ is the reduced exceptional divisor of $π$. Many basic theorems about Du Bois singularities become transparent using this characterization (including the fact that Cohen-Macaulay log canonical singularities are Du Bois).
We also give a straightforward and self-contained proof that (generalizations of) semi-log-canonical singularities are Du Bois, in the Cohen-Macaulay case. It also follows that the Kodaira vanishing theorem holds for semi-log-canonical varieties and that Cohen-Macaulay semi-log-canonical singularities are cohomologically insignificant in the sense of Dolgachev.
Let $X$ be a variety and $H$ a Cartier divisor on $X$. We prove that if $H$ has Du Bois (or DB) singularities, then $X$ has Du Bois singularities near $H$. As a consequence, if $X \to S$ is a family over a smooth curve $S$ whose special fiber has Du Bois singularities, then the nearby fibers also have Du Bois singularities. We prove this by obtaining an injectivity theorem for certain maps of canonical modules. As a consequence, we also obtain a restriction theorem for certain non-lc ideals.
We prove several results about the behavior Du Bois singularities and Du Bois pairs in families. Some of these generalize existing statements about Du Bois singularities to the pair setting while others are new even in the non-pair setting. We also prove a new inversion of adjunction result for Du Bois and rational pairs. In the non-pair setting this asserts that if a family over a smooth base has a special fiber $X_0$ with Du Bois singularities and the general fiber has rational singularities, then the total space has rational singularities near $X_0$.
In this paper we study the local cohomology modules of Du Bois singularities. Let $(R,m)$ be a local ring, we prove that if $R_{red}$ is Du Bois, then $H_m^i(R)\to H_m^i(R_{red})$ is surjective for every $i$. We find many applications of this result. For example we answer a question of Kovács and the second author on the Cohen-Macaulay property of Du Bois singularities. We obtain results on the injectivity of $Ext$ that provide substantial partial answers of questions of Eisenbud-Mustata-Stillman in characteristic $0$, and these results can be viewed as generalizations of the Kodaira vanishing…
This is a survey of some recent developments in the study of singularities related to the classification theory of algebraic varieties. In particular, the definition and basic properties of Du Bois singularities and their connections to the more commonly known singularities of the minimal model program are reviewed and discussed.
Let $(R,m,k)$ be an excellent local ring of equal characteristic. Let $j$ be a positive integer such that $H_m^i(R)$ has finite length for every $0\leq i <j$. We prove that if $R$ is $F$-injective in characteristic $p>0$ or Du Bois in characteristic $0$, then the truncated dualizing complex $τ_{>-j}ω_R^\bullet$ is quasi-isomorphic to a complex of $k$-vector spaces. As a consequence, $F$-injective or Du Bois singularities with isolated non-Cohen-Macaulay locus are Buchsbaum. Moreover, when $R$ has $F$-rational or rational singularities on the punctured spectrum, we obtain stronger results.
Using Altmann-Hausen-Suss description of $\mathbb{T}$-varieties via divisorial fans and Kóvacs-Schwede-Smith characterization of Du Bois singularities, we study Cohen-Macaulay Du Bois $\mathbb{T}$-singularities of complexity one. We exhibit cohomological criteria for a $\mathbb{T}$-variety to be Cohen-Macaulay and Du Bois in terms of polyhedral divisors. We give an example of a Cohen-Macaulay Du Bois singularity of complexity one which does not have rational singularities.
It is proved that for projective varieties having Du Bois singularities is equivalent to the condition that the coherent cohomology groups of the structure sheaf coincide with the appropriate Hodge components of the singular cohomology groups.
We investigate properties of potentially Du Bois singularities, that is, those that occur on the underlying space of a Du Bois pair. We show that a normal variety $X$ with potentially Du Bois singularities and Cartier canonical divisor $K_X$ is necessarily log canonical, and hence Du Bois. As an immediate corollary, we obtain the Lipman-Zariski conjecture for varieties with potentially Du Bois singularities. We also show that for a normal surface singularity, the notions of Du Bois and potentially Du Bois singularities coincide. In contrast, we give an example showing that in dimension at leas…
We introduce the notion of a poset scheme and study the categories of quasi-coherent sheaves on such spaces. We then show that smooth poset schemes may be used to obtain categorical resolutions of singularities for usual singular schemes. We prove that a singular variety $X$ possesses such a resolution if and only if $X$ has Du Bois singularities. Finally we show that the de Rham-Du Bois complex for an algebraic variety $Y$ may be defined using any smooth poset scheme which satisfies the descent over $Y$ in the classical topology.
In this note we show that the sheaf $R^1 f_* \mathcal{O}_X$ is an anti-nef vector bundle (i.e., its dual is nef), where $f : X \to Y$ is a family of Du Bois schemes of pure dimension.
A recurring difficulty in the Minimal Model Program is that while log terminal singularities are quite well behaved (for instance, they are rational), log canonical singularities are much more complicated; they need not even be Cohen-Macaulay. The aim of this paper is to prove that log canonical singularities are Du Bois. The concept of Du Bois singularities, introduced by Steenbrink, is a weakening of rationality. We also prove flatness of the cohomology sheaves of the relative dualizing complex of a projective family with Du Bois fibers. This implies that each connected component of the modu…
For a complex algebraic variety $X$, we introduce higher $p$-Du Bois singularity by imposing canonical isomorphisms between the sheaves of Kähler differential forms $Ω_X^q$ and the shifted graded pieces of the Du Bois complex $\underlineΩ_X^q$ for $q\le p$. If $X$ is a reduced hypersurface, we show that higher $p$-Du~Bois singularity coincides with higher $p$-log canonical singularity, generalizing a well-known theorem for $p=0$. The assertion that $p$-log canonicity implies $p$-Du Bois has been proved by Mustata, Olano, Popa, and Witaszek quite recently as a corollary of two theorems assertin…
Recently M. Mustata and V. Srinivas related a natural conjecture about the Frobenius action on the cohomology of the structure sheaf after reduction to characteristic $p > 0$ with another conjecture connecting multiplier ideals and test ideals. We generalize this relation to the case of singular ambient varieties. Additionally, we connect these results to a conjecture relating $F$-injective and Du Bois singularities. Finally, using an unpublished result of Gabber, we also show that $F$-injective and Du Bois singularities have a common definition in terms of smooth hypercovers.
We prove that the cohomology sheaves of the relative dualizing complex of a flat family of varieties with semi-log-canonical or Du Bois singularities are flat and commute with base change. This is a local version of our earlier similar result where the family was assumed to be projective. We also derive several consequences for deformations of semi-log-canonical and of Du Bois singularities.
We give a criterion for the sheaf of Kähler differentials on a cone over a smooth projective variety to be torsion-free. Applying this to Veronese embeddings of projective space and using known results on differentials on quotient singularities we show that even for mild, e.g. Gorenstein terminal, singularities the sheaf of Kähler differentials will in general have torsion and cotorsion.
We introduce a lifting property for local cohomology, which leads to a unified treatment of the dualizing complex for flat morphisms with semi-log-canonical, Du Bois or F-pure fibers. As a consequence we obtain that, in all 3 cases, the cohomology sheaves of the relative dualizing complex are flat and commute with base change. We also derive several consequences for deformations of semi-log-canonical, Du Bois and F-pure singularities.
We study the Du Bois complex $\underlineΩ_Z^\bullet$ of a hypersurface $Z$ in a smooth complex algebraic variety in terms its minimal exponent $\widetildeα(Z)$. The latter is an invariant of singularities, defined as the negative of the greatest root of the reduced Bernstein-Sato polynomial of $Z$, and refining the log canonical threshold. We show that if $\widetildeα(Z)\geq p+1$, then the canonical morphism $Ω_Z^p\to \underlineΩ_Z^p$ is an isomorphism, where $\underlineΩ_Z^p$ is the $p$-th associated graded piece of the Du Bois complex with respect to the Hodge filtration. On the other hand, …
We explicitly describe infintesimal deformations of cyclic quotient singularities that satisfy one of the deformation conditions introduced by Wahl, Kollár-Shepherd-Barron and Viehweg. The conclusion is that in many cases these three notions are different from each other. In particular, we see that while the KSB and the Viehweg versions of the moduli space of surfaces of general type have the same underlying reduced subscheme, their infinitesimal structures are different.
The main problem studied is resolution of singularities of the cotangent sheaf of a complex- or real-analytic variety Y (or of an algebraic variety Y over a field of characteristic zero). Given Y, we ask whether there is a global resolution of singularities s: X -> Y such that the pulled-back cotangent sheaf of Y is generated by differential monomials in suitable coordinates at every point of X ("Hsiang-Pati coordinates''). Desingularization of the cotangent sheaf is equivalent to monomialization of Fitting ideals generated by minors of a given order of the logarithmic Jacobian matrix of s. We…
In this paper, we show that the depth of an isolated log canonical center is determined by the cohomology of the -1 discrepancy diviors over it. A similar result also holds for normal isolated Du Bois singularities.
We prove the vanishing modulo torsion of the higher direct images of the sheaf of Witt vectors (and the Witt canonical sheaf) for a purely inseparable projective alteration between normal finite quotients over a perfect field. For this, we show that the relative Hodge-Witt cohomology admits an action of correspondences. As an application we define Witt-rational singularities which form a broader class than rational singularities. In particular, finite quotients have Witt-rational singularities. In addition, we prove that the torsion part of the Witt vector cohomology of a smooth, proper scheme…
Given an n-dimensional variety Z with rational singularities, we conjecture that for a resolution of singularities whose reduced exceptional divisor E has simple normal crossings, the (n-1)-th higher direct image of the sheaf of differential forms with log poles along E vanishes. We prove this when Z has isolated singularities and when it is a toric variety. We deduce that for a divisor D with isolated rational singularities on a smooth complex n-dimensional variety X, the generation level of Saito's Hodge filtration on the localization of the structure sheaf along D is at most n-3.
Let $Y$ be a generic link of a subvariety $X$ of a nonsingular variety $A$. We give a description of the Grauert-Riemenschneider canonical sheaf of $Y$ in terms of the multiplier ideal sheaves associated to $X$ and use it to study the singularities of $Y$. As the first application, we give a criterion when $Y$ has rational singularities and show that log canonical threshold increases and log canonical pairs are preserved in generic linkage. As another application we give a quick and simple liaison method to generalize the results of de Fernex-Ein and Chardin-Ulrich on the Castelnuovo-Mumford r…
We describe the sheaf T^1(X) of first order deformations of a reduced scheme with normal crossing singularities. In particular, we obtain a formula for T^1(X) in a suitable log resolution of X.
For a characteristic $p > 0$ variety $X$ with controlled $F$-singularities, we state conditions which imply that a divisorial sheaf is Cohen-Macaulay or at least has depth $\geq 3$ at certain points. This mirrors results of Kollár for varieties in characteristic zero. As an application, we show that that relative canonical sheaves are compatible with arbitrary base change for certain families with sharply $F$-pure fibers.
We study the sheaf of locally square integrable holomorphic section of vector bundle with semi-positive curved singular Hermitian metric. We confirm the coherence when its induced determinant metric has analytic singularities.
In this paper, we study the coherence of a higher rank analogue of a multiplier ideal sheaf. Key tools of the study are Hörmander's $L^2$-estimate and a singular version of a Demailly--Skoda type result.
The method of intersection spaces associates rational Poincaré complexes to singular stratified spaces. For a conifold transition, the resulting cohomology theory yields the correct count of all present massless 3-branes in type IIB string theory, while intersection cohomology yields the correct count of massless 2-branes in type IIA theory. For complex projective hypersurfaces with an isolated singularity, we show that the cohomology of intersection spaces is the hypercohomology of a perverse sheaf, the intersection space complex, on the hypersurface. Moreover, the intersection space complex …
