A differential operator $D$ commuting with an $S^1$-action is said to be rigid if the non-constant Fourier coefficients of $\ker D$ and $\coker D$ are the same. Somewhat surprisingly, the study of rigid differential operators turns out to be closely related to the problem of defining Chern numbers on singular varieties. This relationship comes into play when we make use of the rigidity properties of the complex elliptic genus--essentially an infinite-dimensional analogue of a Dirac operator. This paper is a survey of rigidity theorems related to the elliptic genus, and their applications to the construction "singular" Chern numbers.
Symmetric varieties are normal equivariant open embeddings of symmetric homogeneous spaces and they are interesting examples of spherical varieties. The principal goal of this article is to study the rigidity under Kähler deformations of smooth projective symmetric varieties with Picard number one.
Michael Gromov has recently initiated what he calls ``symbolic algebraic geometry", in which objects are proalgebraic varieties: a proalgebraic variety is by definition the projective limit of a projective system of algebraic varieties. In this paper we construct Chern--Schwartz--MacPherson classes of proalgebraic varieties, by introducing the notion of ``proconstructible functions " and "$χ$-stable proconstructible functions" and using the Fulton-MacPherson's Bivariant Theory. As a "motivic" version of a $χ$-stable proconstructible function, $\Ga$-stable constructible functions are introduced…
We describe the equivariant Chow ring of the wonderful compactification $X$ of a symmetric space of minimal rank, via restriction to the associated toric variety $Y$. Also, we show that the restrictions to $Y$ of the tangent bundle $T_X$ and its logarithmic analogue $S_X$ decompose into a direct sum of line bundles. This yields closed formulae for the equivariant Chern classes of $T_X$ and $S_X$, and, in turn, for the Chern classes of reductive groups considered by Kiritchenko.
Upper bounds on projective rigidity of each homogeneously embedded homogeneous variety are determined; and a new, invariant characterization of the Fubini forms is given.
Let D be a central division algebra over a field F. We study in this note the rigidity of the motivic decompositions of the Severi-Brauer varieties of D, with respect to the ring of coefficients and to the base field. We first show that if the ring of coefficient is a field, these decompositions only depend on its characteristic. In a second part we show that if D remains division over a field extension E/F, the motivic decompositions of several Severi-Brauer varieties of D remain the same when extending the scalars to E.
We define the equivariant Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class of a possibly singular algebraic variety with a group action over the complex number field (or a field of characteristic 0). In fact, we construct a natural transformation from the equivariant constructible function functor to the equivariant homology functor (in the sense of Totaro-Edidin-Graham), which may be regarded as MacPherson's transformation for (certain) quotient stacks. We discuss on other type Chern/Segre classes and give some applications generalizing orbifold Euler characteristics and Thom polynomials of singularities. The…
For a $G$-variety $X$ with an open orbit, we define its boundary $\partial X$ as the complement of the open orbit. The action sheaf $S_X$ is the subsheaf of the tangent sheaf made of vector fields tangent to $\partial X$. We prove, for a large family of smooth spherical varieties, the vanishing of the cohomology groups $H^i(X,S_X)$ for $i>0$, extending results of F. Bien and M. Brion. We apply these results to study the local rigidity of the smooth projective varieties with Picard number one classified in a previous paper of the first author.
In this paper, we study the analogue of the Shafarevich conjecture for polarized Calabi-Yau varieties. We use variations of Hodge structures and Higgs bundles to establish a criterion for the {\it rigidity} of families. We then apply the criterion to obtain that some important and typical families of Calabi-Yau varieties are rigid, for examples., Lefschetz pencils of Calabi-Yau varieties, {\it strongly degenerated} families (not only for families of Calabi-Yau varieties), families of Calabi-Yau varieties admitting a degeneration with {\it maximal unipotent monodromy}.
It is known that projective minimal models satisfy the celebrated Miyaoka-Yau inequalities. In this article, we extend these inequalities to the set of all smooth, projective and non-uniruled varieties.
We classify smooth Schubert varieties S_0 in a rational homogeneous manifold S associated to a short root, and show that they are rigid in the sense that any subvariety of S having the same homology class as S_0 is induced by the action of Aut_0(S), unless S_0 is linear.
One can associate to a bipartite graph a so-called edge ring whose spectrum is an affine normal toric variety. We characterize the faces of the (edge) cone associated to this toric variety in terms of some independent sets of the bipartite graph. By applying to this characterization the combinatorial study of deformations of toric varieties by Altmann, we present certain criteria for their rigidity purely in terms of graphs.
Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications（北京数学与应用数学研究所）；Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；National Research University Higher School of Economics（国立高等经济大学）；Yau Mathematical Sciences Center, Tsinghua University（清华大学丘成桐数学科学中心）
We give upper and lower bounds for the order of the top Chern class of the Hodge bundle on the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties.
We give upper and lower bounds for the order of the top Chern class of the Hodge bundle on the moduli space of principally polarized abelian varieties. We also give a generalization to higher genera of the famous formula $12 λ_1=δ$ for genus 1.
These are expository notes from the 2008 Srni Winter School. They have two purposes: (1) to give a quick introduction to exterior differential systems (EDS), which is a collection of techniques for determining local existence to systems of partial differential equations, and (2) to give an exposition of recent work (joint with C. Robles) on the study of the Fubini-Griffiths-Harris rigidity of rational homogeneous varieties, which also involves an advance in the EDS technology.
Trinomial varieties are affine varieties given by some special system of equations consisting of polynomials with three terms. Such varieties are total coordinate spaces of normal rational varieties with torus action of complexity one. For an affine variety X we consider the subgroup SAut(X) of the automorphism group generated by all algebraic subgroups isomorphic to the additive group of the ground field. An affine variety X is rigid if SAut(X) is trivial. In opposite an affine variety is flexible if SAut(X) acts transitively on the regular locus. Arzhantsev proved a criterium for a factorial…
Jun-Muk Hwang and Ngaiming Mok have proved the rigidity of irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces of compact type under Kaehler degeneration. I adapt their argument to the algebraic setting in positive characteristic, where cominuscule homogeneous varieties serve as an analogue of Hermitian symmetric spaces. The main result gives an explicit (computable in terms of Schubert calculus) lower bound on the characteristic of the base field, guaranteeing that a smooth projective family with cominuscule homogeneous generic fibre is isotrivial. The bound depends only on the type of the generic fibre, …
The purpose of this short note is to prove a formula for the Chern-Mather classes of a toric variety in terms of its orbits and the local Euler obstructions at general points of each orbit (Theorem 2). We use the general definition of the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson classes (see [7]) and their special expression in case of a toric variety (see [2]). As a corollary, we obtain a formula by Matsui-Takeuchi [8, Corollary 1.6]. Alternatively, one could deduce the formula of Theorem 2 from the Matsui-Takeuchi formula, by using our general result [11, Theoreme 3] for the degree of the polar varieties i…
Let $A^{[[n]]}$ denote the $2(n - 1)$-dimensional generalised Kummer variety constructed from the abelian surface $A$. Further, let $X$ be an arbitrary smooth projective surface with $\int_X c_1(X)^2 \neq 0$, and $X^{[k]}$ the Hilbert scheme of zero-dimensional subschemes of $X$ of length $k$. We give a formula which expresses the value of any complex genus on $A^{[[n]]}$ in terms of Chern numbers of the varieties $X^{[k]}$. It is shown by Ellingsrud and Stroemme how to use Bott's residue formula to effectively calculate the Chern numbers of the Hilbert schemes $(\IP^2)^{[k]}$ of points on the…
We give a generalization to higher genera of the famous formula $12 λ=δ$ for genus 1. We also compute the classes of certain strata in the Satake compactification as elements of the push down of the tautological ring.
In 1954 Hirzebruch asked which linear combinations of Chern numbers are topological invariants of smooth complex projective varieties. We give a complete answer to this question in small dimensions, and also prove partial results without restrictions on the dimension.
We give explicit formulas for the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson classes of all Schubert varieties in the Grassmannian of $d$-planes in a vector space, and conjecture that these classes are effective. We prove this is the case for (very) small values of $d$.
We show that the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class of a Schubert cell in a Grassmannian is represented by a reduced and irreducible subvariety in each degree. This gives an affirmative answer to a positivity conjecture of Aluffi and Mihalcea.
We introduce a certain index of a collection of germs of 1-forms on a germ of a singular variety which is a generalization of the local Euler obstruction corresponding to Chern numbers different from the top one.
Given a rational homogeneous manifold $S=G/P$ of Picard number one and a Schubert variety $S_0 $ of $S$, the pair $(S,S_0)$ is said to be homologically rigid if any subvariety of $S$ having the same homology class as $S_0$ must be a translate of $S_0$ by the automorphism group of $S$. The pair $(S,S_0)$ is said to be Schur rigid if any subvariety of $ S$ with homology class equal to a multiple of the homology class of $S_0$ must be a sum of translates of $S_0$. Earlier we completely determined homologically rigid pairs $(S,S_0)$ in case $S_0 $ is homogeneous and answered the same question in s…
A theorem of Batyrev's asserts that if two nonsingular varieties V,W are birational, and their canonical bundles agree after pull-back to a resolution of indeterminacies of a birational map between them, then the Betti numbers of V and W coincide. We prove that, in the same hypotheses, the total homology Chern classes of V and W are push-forwards of the same class in the Chow group of the resolution. For example, it follows that the push-forward of the total Chern class of a crepant resolution of a singular variety is independent of the resolution.
We generalize the Chern class relation for the transversal intersection of two nonsingular varieties to a relation for possibly singular varieties, under a 'splayedness' assumption. The relation is shown to hold for both the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class and the Chern-Fulton class. The main tool is a formula for Segre classes of splayed subschemes. We also discuss the Chern class relation under the assumption that one of the varieties is a general very ample divisor.
We give a brief survey of the concept of birational rigidity, from its origins in the two-dimensional birational geometry, to its current state. The main ingredients of the method of maximal singularities are discussed. The principal results of the theory of birational rigidity of higher-dimensional Fano varieties and fibrations are given and certain natural conjectures are formulated.
Homotopy continuation provides a numerical tool for computing the equivalence of a smooth variety in an intersection product. Intersection theory provides a theoretical tool for relating the equivalence of a smooth variety in an intersection product to the degrees of the Chern classes of the variety. A combination of these tools leads to a numerical method for computing the degrees of Chern classes of smooth projective varieties in P^n. We illustrate the approach through several worked examples.
Kawamata proposed a conjecture predicting that every nef and big line bundle on a smooth projective variety with trivial first Chern class has nontrivial global sections. We verify this conjecture for several cases, including (i) all hyperkähler varieties of dimension $\leq 6$; (ii) all known hyperkähler varieties except for O'Grady's 10-dimensional example; (iii) general complete intersection Calabi-Yau varieties in certain Fano manifolds (e.g. toric ones). Moreover, we investigate the effectivity of Todd classes of hyperkähler varieties and Calabi-Yau varieties. We prove that the fourth Todd…
Motivic integration and MacPherson's transformation are combined in this paper to construct a theory of "stringy" Chern classes for singular varieties. These classes enjoy strong birational invariance properties, and their definition encodes data coming from resolution of singularities. The singularities allowed in the theory are those typical of the minimal model program; examples are given by quotients of manifolds by finite groups. For the latter an explicit formula is proven, assuming that the canonical line bundle of the manifold descends to the quotient. This gives an expression of the s…
It was noticed in a very recent preprint of T. Eguchi, K. Hori, and Ch.-Sh. Xiong (hep-th/9703086) that a curious identity between Betti numbers and Chern classes holds for many examples of Fano varieties. The goal of this paper is to prove that for varieties with trivial odd cohomology groups this identity is equivalent to having zero Hodge numbers $h^{p,q}$ for $p\neq q$.
We prove that a rational linear combination of Chern numbers is an oriented diffeomorphism invariant of smooth complex projective varieties if and only if it is a linear combination of the Euler and Pontryagin numbers. In dimension at least three we prove that only multiples of the top Chern number, which is the Euler characteristic, are invariant under diffeomorphisms that are not necessarily orientation-preserving. These results solve a long-standing problem of Hirzebruch's. We also determine the linear combinations of Chern numbers that can be bounded in terms of Betti numbers.
Let X be a normal projective Q-Gorenstein variety with at worst log-terminal singularities. We prove a formula expressing the total stringy Chern class of a generic complete intersection in X via the total stringy Chern class of X. This formula is motivated by its applications to mirror symmetry for Calabi-Yau complete intersections in toric varieties. We compute stringy Chern classes and give a combinatorial interpretation of the stringy Libgober-Wood identity for arbitrary projective Q-Gorenstein toric varieties. As an application we derive a new combinatorial identity relating d-dimensional…
In this paper, I construct Chern classes in the rigid cohomology of P. Berthelot. We start by constructing Chern classes for proper varieties. To prove all the properties we have to reinterpret the construction in a crystalline way. Then we can deal with open varieties using a compactification theorem.
We discuss a method for calculating the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson (CSM) class of a Schubert variety in the Grassmannian using small resolutions introduced by Zelevinsky. As a consequence, we show how to compute the Chern-Mather class and local Euler obstructions using small resolutions instead of the Nash blowup. The algorithm obtained for CSM classes also allows us to prove new cases of a positivity conjecture of Aluffi and Mihalcea.
Consider the natural torus action on a partial flag manifold $Fl$. Let $Ω_I\subset Fl$ be an open Schubert variety, and let $c^{sm}(Ω_I)\in H_T^*(Fl)$ be its torus equivariant Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class. We show a set of interpolation properties that uniquely determine $c^{sm}(Ω_I)$, as well as a formula, of `localization type', for $c^{sm}(Ω_I)$. In fact, we proved similar results for a class $κ_I\in H_T^*(Fl)$ --- in the context of quantum group actions on the equivariant cohomology groups of partial flag varieties. In this note we show that $c^{SM}(Ω_I)=κ_I$.
Topological invariants such as characteristic classes are an important tool to aid in understanding and categorizing the structure and properties of algebraic varieties. In this note we consider the problem of computing a particular characteristic class, the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class, of a complete simplicial toric variety X defined by a fan from the combinatorial data contained in the fan. Specifically, we give an effective combinatorial algorithm to compute the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class of X, in the Chow ring (or rational Chow ring) of X. This method is formulated by combining, a…
A rational linear combination of Chern numbers is an oriented diffeomorphism invariant of smooth complex projective varieties if and only if it is a linear combination of the Euler and Pontryagin numbers. In dimension at least three only multiples of the top Chern number, which is the Euler characteristic, are invariant under diffeomorphisms that are not necessarily orientation-preserving. In the space of Chern numbers there are two distinguished subspaces, one spanned by the Euler and Pontryagin numbers, the other spanned by the Hirzebruch--Todd numbers. Their intersection is the span of the …
We observe that linear relations among Chern-Mather classes of projective varieties are preserved by projective duality. We deduce the existence of an explicit involution on a part of the Chow group of projective space, encoding the effect of duality on Chern-Mather classes. Applications include Plücker formulae, constraints on self-dual varieties, generalizations to singular varieties of classical formulas for the degree of the dual and the dual defect, formulas for the Euclidean distance degree, and computations of Chern-Mather classes and local Euler obstructions for cones.
We introduce a formal integral on the system of varieties mapping properly and birationally to a given one, with value in an associated Chow group. Applications include comparisons of Chern numbers of birational varieties, new birational invariants, `stringy' Chern classes, and a `celestial' zeta function specializing to the topological zeta function. In its simplest manifestation, the integral gives a new expression for Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson classes of possibly singular varieties, placing them into a context in which a `change of variable' formula holds. The formalism has points of contac…
A fundamental goal of algebraic geometry is to do for singular varieties whatever we can do for smooth ones. Intersection homology, for example, directly produces groups associated to any variety which have almost all the properties of the usual homology groups of a smooth variety. Minimal model theory suggests the possibility of working more indirectly by relating any singular variety to a variety which is smooth or nearly so. Here we use ideas from minimal model theory to define some characteristic numbers for singular varieties, generalizing the Chern numbers of a smooth variety. This was s…
Varieties without deformations are defined over a number field. Several old and new examples of this phenomenon are discussed such as Bely\u ı curves and Shimura varieties. Rigidity is related to maximal Higgs fields which come from variations of Hodge structure. Basic properties for these due to P. Griffiths, W. Schmid, C. Simpson and, on the arithmetic side, to Y. André and I. Satake all play a role. This note tries to give a largely self-contained exposition of these manifold ideas and techniques, presenting, where possible, short new proofs for key results.
We introduce a notion of `proChow group' of varieties, agreeing with the notion of Chow group for complete varieties and covariantly functorial with respect to arbitrary morphisms. We construct a natural transformation from the functor of constructible functions to the proChow functor, extending MacPherson's natural transformation. We illustrate the result by providing very short proofs of (a generalization of) two well-known facts on Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson classes: Kwiecinski's product formula, and the Ehlers-Barthel-Brasselet-Fieseler computation of Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson classes of to…
Let $V$ be a possibly singular scheme-theoretic complete intersection subscheme of $\mathbb{P}^n$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. Using a recent result of Fullwood ("On Milnor classes via invariants of singular subschemes", Journal of Singularities) we develop an algorithm to compute the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class and Euler characteristic of $V$. This algorithm complements existing algorithms by providing performance improvements in the computation of the Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson class and Euler characteristic for certain types of complete intersection subschem…
