In this paper we give smoothness criterions for a good quotient Y of a smooth variety X by a reductive group G. Our results partially answer a question raised by J. Fogarty in the case where G is a finite group. They also give a converse to a theorem of M. Brion, telling that invariant horizontal differential forms on X and differential forms on Y are isomorphic under the assumption that Y is smooth. The proof of our criterion rely on a new description of the dualizing sheaf of Y established in this article.
We give another proof that a reductive algebraic group is geometrically reductive. We show that a quotient of the semi-stable locus (by a linear action of a reductive algebraic group on a projective scheme) exists, and from this Haboush's Theorem (Mumford's Conjecture) follows.
We establish a method for calculating the Poincaré series of moduli spaces constructed as quotients of smooth varieties by suitable non-reductive group actions; examples of such moduli spaces include moduli spaces of unstable vector or Higgs bundles on a smooth projective curve, with a Harder-Narasimhan type of length two. To do so, we first prove a result concerning the smoothness of fixed point sets for suitable non-reductive group actions on smooth varieties. This enables us to prove that quotients of smooth varieties by such non-reductive group actions, which can be constructed using Non-R…
This paper generalizes the classical theory of Newton polygons from the case of general linear groups to the case of split reductive groups. It also gives a root-theoretic formula for dimensions of Newton strata in the adjoint quotients of reductive groups.
Given a suitable action on a complex projective variety X of a non-reductive affine algebraic group H, this paper considers how to choose a reductive group G containing H and a projective completion of G x_H X which is a reductive envelope in the sense of math.AG/0703131. In particular it studies the family of examples given by moduli spaces of hypersurfaces in the weighted projective plane P(1,1,2) obtained as quotients by linear actions of the (non-reductive) automorphism group of P(1,1,2).
We prove that good quotients of algebraic varieties with 1-rational singularities also have 1-rational singularities. This refines a result of Boutot on rational singularities of good quotients.
We extend the methods of geometric invariant theory to actions of non--reductive groups in the case of homomorphisms between decomposable sheaves whose automorphism groups are non--reductive. Given a linearization of the natural action of the group $\Aut(E)\times\Aut(F)$ on Hom(E,F), a homomorphism is called stable if its orbit with respect to the unipotent radical is contained in the stable locus with respect to the natural reductive subgroup of the automorphism group. We encounter effective numerical conditions for a linearization such that the corresponding open set of semi-stable homomorph…
In this paper we study actions of reductive groups on affine spaces. We prove that there is a fan structure on the space of characters of the group, which parameterizes the possible invariant quotients. In the second half of the paper we study various geometrical properties of the quotients: we compute their Chow ring and the cohomology ring (in case we work over the complex numbers), both with rational coefficients. Actually, the cycle map turns out to be an isomorphism. Further, we construct families of such quotients over reduced base schemes, and compute again the Chow and the cohomology r…
Let G be a connected reductive algebraic group over an algebraically closed field k. In a recent paper, Bate, Martin, Röhrle and Tange show that every (smooth) subgroup of G is separable provided that the characteristic of k is very good for G. Here separability of a subgroup means that its scheme-theoretic centralizer in G is smooth. Serre suggested extending this result to arbitrary, possibly non-smooth, subgroup schemes of G. The aim of this note is to prove this more general result. Moreover, we provide a condition on the characteristic of k that is necessary and sufficient for the smoothn…
Consider an algebraic action of a connected complex reductive algebraic group on a complex polarized projective variety. In this paper, we first introduce the nilpotent quotient, the quotient of the polarized projective variety by a maximal unipotent subgroup. Then, we introduce and investigate three induced actions: one by the reductive group, one by a Borel subgroup, and one by a maximal torus, respectively. Our main result is that there are natural correspondences among quotients of these three actions. In the end, we mention a possible application to the moduli spaces of parabolic bundles …
Let X be a locally symmetric variety. Let EBS(X) and TorE(X) denote its excentric Borel-Serre and excentric toroidal compactifications, resp. We determine their least common modification and use it to prove a conjecture of Goresky and Tai concerning canonical extensions of homogeneous vector bundles. In the process, we see that EBS(X) and TorE(X) are homotopy equivalent.
We study linear actions of algebraic groups on smooth projective varieties X. A guiding goal for us is to understand the cohomology of "quotients" under such actions, by generalizing (from reductive to non-reductive group actions) existing methods involving Mumford's geometric invariant theory (GIT). We concentrate on actions of unipotent groups H, and define sets of stable points X^s and semistable points X^{ss}, often explicitly computable via the methods of reductive GIT, which reduce to the standard definitions due to Mumford in the case of reductive actions. We compare these with definiti…
We study the Newton stratification of the adjoint quotient of a connected split reductive group G with simply connected derived group over the field F of formal Laurent series in one variable over the field of complex numbers. Our main result describes the centralizer of a regular semisimple element in G(F) whose image in the adjoint quotient lies in a certain generic subset of a given Newton stratum. Other noteworthy results include analogues of some results of Springer on regular elements of finite reflection groups, as well as a geometric construction of a well known homomorphism from the f…
We study algebraicity and smoothness of fixed point stacks for flat group schemes which have a finite composition series whose factors are either reductive or proper, flat, finitely presented, acting on algebraic stacks with affine, finitely presented diagonal. For this, we extend some theorems of [SGA3.2] on functors of homomorphisms Hom(G, H) and functors of reductive subgroups Sub(H) for an affine, possibly non-flat group scheme H.
The symplectic implosion construction of Guillemin, Jeffrey and Sjamaar associates to a Hamiltonian action of a compact group K on a symplectic manifold X its 'imploded cross section'. When X is a complex projective variety and K acts linearly on X, this construction is closely related to geometric invariant theory (GIT) for the action on X of a maximal unipotent subgroup U of the complexification G of K. The aim of this paper is to generalise symplectic implosion to give a symplectic construction for GIT-like quotients by unipotent radicals U of arbitrary parabolic subgroups P of the complex …
The space of n distinct points and a disjoint parameterized hyperplane in projective d-space up to projectivity---equivalently, configurations of n distinct points in affine d-space up to translation and homothety---has a beautiful compactification introduced by Chen-Gibney-Krashen. This variety, constructed inductively using the apparatus of Fulton-MacPherson configuration spaces, is a parameter space of certain pointed rational varieties whose dual intersection complex is a rooted tree. This generalizes $\overline{M}_{0,n}$ and shares many properties with it. In this paper, we prove that the…
For a derived stack obtained as a quotient of a derived affine scheme by a reductive group, we show that shifted symplectic structures can be characterized by the Cartan-de Rham complex. For non-reductive groups, we also show the analogous statement for Getzler's extension of the Cartan-de Rham complex. Dually, we construct a Cartan model for polyvector fields on global quotients by reductive groups, and show that shifted Poisson structures can be characterized by it.
The wall-and-chamber structure of the dependence of the reductive GIT quotient on the choice of linearisation is well known. In this article, we first give a brief survey of recent results in non-reductive GIT, which apply when the unipotent radical is 'graded'. We then examine the dependence of these non-reductive quotients on the linearisation and an additional parameter, the choice of one-parameter subgroup grading the unipotent radical, and arrive at a picture similar to the reductive one.
In this article we review the question of constructing geometric quotients of actions of linear algebraic groups on irreducible varieties over algebraically closed fields of characteristic zero, in the spirit of Mumford's geometric invariant theory (GIT). The article surveys some recent work on geometric invariant theory and quotients of varieties by linear algebraic group actions, as well as background material on linear algebraic groups, Mumford's GIT and some of the challenges that the non-reductive setting presents. The earlier work of two of the authors in the setting of unipotent group a…
Motivated by constructing moduli spaces of unstable objects, we use new ideas in non-reductive GIT to construct quotients by parabolic group actions. For moduli problems with semistable moduli spaces constructed by reductive GIT, we consider associated instability (or HKKN) stratifications, which are often closed related to Harder-Narasimhan stratifications, and construct quotients of the unstable strata under various stabiliser assumptions by further developing ideas of non-reductive GIT. Our approach is to construct parabolic quotients in stages, in order for the required stabiliser assumpti…
Motivated by the study of hyperkahler structures in moduli problems and hyperkahler implosion, we initiate the study of non-reductive hyperkahler and algebraic symplectic quotients with an eye towards those naturally tied to projective geometry, like cotangent bundles of blow-ups of linear arrangements of projective space. In the absence of a Kempf-Ness theorem for non-reductive quotients, we focus on constructing algebraic symplectic analogues of additive quotients of affine spaces, and obtain hyperkahler structures on large open subsets of these analogues by comparison with reductive analogu…
We prove that a quotient singularity $\mathbb{C}^n/G $ by a finite subgroup $G\subset SL_n(\mathbb{C})$ has a crepant resolution only if $G $ is generated by junior elements. This is a generalization of the result of Verbitsky [V]. We also give a procedure to compute the Cox ring of a minimal model of a given $\mathbb{C}^n/G$ explicitly from information of $G$. As an application, we investigate the smoothness of minimal models of some quotient singularities. Together with work of Bellamy and Schedler, this completes the classification of symplectically imprimitive quotient singularities which …
We show that near closed points with linearly reductive stabilizer, Artin stacks are formally locally quotient stacks by the stabilizer. We conjecture that the statement holds etale locally and we provide some evidence for this conjecture. In particular, we prove that if the stabilizer of a point is linearly reductive, the stabilizer acts algebraically on a miniversal deformation space generalizing results of Pinkham and Rim.
We prove finite generation of the algebras of invariants for a class of linear actions of suitable non-reductive groups on projective and affine varieties, and give a geometric construction for their GIT quotients.
For a connected reductive group G and a finite-dimensional G-module V, we study the invariant Hilbert scheme that parameterizes closed G-stable subschemes of V affording a fixed, multiplicity-finite representation of G in their coordinate ring. We construct an action on this invariant Hilbert scheme of a maximal torus T of G, together with an open T-stable subscheme admitting a good quotient. The fibers of the quotient map classify affine G-schemes having a prescribed categorical quotient by a maximal unipotent subgroup of G. We show that V contains only finitely many multiplicity-free G-subva…
We study equivariant projective compactifications of reductive groups obtained by closing the image of a group in the space of operators of a projective representation. We describe the structure and the mutual position of their orbits under the action of the doubled group by left/right multiplications, the local structure in a neighborhood of a closed orbit, and obtain some conditions of normality and smoothness of a compactification. Our methods of research use the theory of equivariant embeddings of spherical homogeneous spaces and of reductive algebraic semigroups.
The $L^2$-cohomology of a locally symmetric variety is known to have the topological interpretation as the intersection homology of its Baily-Borel Satake compactification. In this article, we observe that even without the Hermitian hypothesis, the $L^p$-cohomology of an arithmetic quotient, for $p$ finite and sufficiently large, is isomorphic to the ordinary cohomology of its reductive Borel-Serre compactification. We use this to generalize a theorem of Mumford concerning homogeneous vector bundles, their invariant Chern forms and the canonical extensions of the bundles; here, though, we are …
We generalize the classical Chevalley-Shephard-Todd theorem to the case of finite linearly reductive group schemes. As an application, we prove that every scheme X which is etale locally the quotient of a smooth scheme by a finite linearly reductive group scheme is the coarse space of a smooth tame Artin stack (as defined by Abramovich, Olsson, and Vistoli) whose stacky structure is supported on the singular locus of X.
In this work we show that the homogeneous space of an affine algebraic group $G$ by a one-dimensional unipotent subgroup $H$ is affine if and only if the subgroup is not contained in any reductive subgroup of $G$.
We prove that the Hodge-de Rham spectral sequence for smooth proper tame Artin stacks in characteristic p (as defined by Abramovich, Olsson, and Vistoli) which lift mod p^2 degenerates. We push the result to the coarse spaces of such stacks, thereby obtaining a degeneracy result for schemes which are etale locally the quotient of a smooth scheme by a finite linearly reductive group scheme.
We prove, for all reductive groups, that the cohomology sheaves with compact support of stacks of shtukas are ind-smooth over $(X - N)^I$ and that their geometric generic fibers are equiped with an action of $\text{Weil}(X - N, \overlineη)^I$. Our method does not use any compactification of stacks of shtukas.
The paper proves that if a reductive group scheme acts properly on a scheme then the geometric quotient exists as an algebraic space. As a consequence we obtain the existence of the moduli spcace of canonically polarized varieties over Spec Z.
In this paper we generalize standard results about non-commutative resolutions of quotient singularities for finite groups to arbitrary reductive groups. We show in particular that quotient singularities for reductive groups always have non-commutative resolutions in an appropriate sense. Moreover we exhibit a large class of such singularities which have (twisted) non-commutative crepant resolutions. We discuss a number of examples, both new and old, that can be treated using our methods. Notably we prove that twisted non-commutative crepant resolutions exist in previously unknown cases for de…
We consider actions of reductive groups on a varieties with finitely generated Cox ring, e.g., the classical case of a diagonal action on a product of projective spaces. Given such an action, we construct via combinatorial data in the Cox ring all maximal open subsets such that the quotient is quasiprojective or embeddable into a toric variety. As applications, we obtain an explicit description of the chamber structure of the linearized ample cone and several Gelfand-MacPherson type correspondences relating quotients of reductive groups to quotients of torus actions. Moreover, our approach pro…
Based on the work of Conrad-Gabber-Prasad, the paper deals with the geometry of particular pseudo-semisimple groups, namely those which can be written as quotient of Weil restriction of semisimple groups. We establish that these groups are retract rational when their are split, and give results on their Picard groups.
We present a generalized version of classical geometric invariant theory à la Mumford where we consider an affine algebraic group $G$ acting on a specific affine algebraic variety $X$. We define the notions of linearly reductive and of unipotent action in terms of the $G$ fixed point functor in the category of $(G,\Bbbk [X])$--modules. In the case that $X=\{\star\}$ we recuperate the concept of lineraly reductive and of unipotent group. We prove in our "relative" context some of the classical results of GIT such as: existence of quotients, finite generation of invariants, Kostant--Rosenlicht's…
Let G be a reductive linear algebraic group, H a reductive subgroup of G and X an affine G-variety. Let Y denote the set of fixed points of H in X, and N(H) the normalizer of H in G. In this paper we study the natural map from the quotient of Y by N(H) to the quotient of X by G induced by the inclusion of Y in X. We show that, given G and H, this map is a finite morphism for all G-varieties X if and only if H is G-completely reducible (in the sense defined by J-P. Serre); this was proved in characteristic zero by Luna in the 1970s. We discuss some applications and give a criterion for the map …
Fix a scheme $X$ over a field of characteristic zero that is equipped with an action of a reductive algebraic group $G$. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a $G$-equivariant coherent sheaf on $X$ or a bounded-above complex of $G$-equivariant coherent sheaves on $X$ to descend to a good quotient $X//G$. This gives a description of the coherent derived category of $X//G$ as an admissible subcategory of the equivariant derived category of $X$.
This thesis is concerned with the mixed Tate property of reductive algebraic groups $G$, which in particular guarantees a Chow Kunneth property for the classifying space $BG$. Toward this goal, we first refine the construction of the compactly supported motive of a quotient stack. In the first section, we construct the compactly supported motive $M^c(X)$ of an algebraic space $X$ and demonstrate that it satisfies expected properties, following closely Voevodsky's work in the case of schemes. In the second section, we construct a functorial version of Totaro's definition of the compactly suppor…
Recent results in geometric invariant theory (GIT) for non-reductive linear algebraic group actions allow us to stratify quotient stacks of the form [X/H], where X is a projective scheme and H is a linear algebraic group with internally graded unipotent radical acting linearly on X, in such a way that each stratum [S/H] has a geometric quotient S/H. This leads to stratifications of moduli stacks (for example, sheaves over a projective scheme) such that each stratum has a coarse moduli space.
By the geometric Satake isomorphism of Mirkovic and Vilonen, decomposition numbers for reductive groups can be interpreted as decomposition numbers for equivariant perverse sheaves on the complex affine Grassmannian of the Langlands dual group. Using a description of the minimal degenerations of the affine Grassmannian obtained by Malkin, Ostrik and Vybornov, we are able to recover geometrically some decomposition numbers for reductive groups. In the other direction, we can use some decomposition numbers for reductive groups to prove geometric results, such as a new proof of non-smoothness res…
Let $(X,ω_X)$ be a derived scheme with a 0-symplectic form and suppose there is a Hamiltonian $G$-action with a moment map for $G$ a reductive group. We prove, under no further assumptions, that symplectic reduction along any coadjoint orbit in the category of derived Artin stacks has a 0-symplectic form.
For a complex variety $\hat X$ with an action of a reductive group $\hat G$ and a geometric quotient $π: \hat X \to X$ by a closed normal subgroup $H \subset \hat G$, we show that open sets of $X$ admitting good quotients by $G=\hat G / H$ correspond bijectively to open sets in $\hat X$ with good $\hat G$-quotients. We use this to compute GIT-chambers and their associated quotients for the diagonal action of $\text{PGL}_2$ on $(\mathbb{P}^1)^n$ in certain subcones of the $\text{PGL}_2$-effective cone via a torus action on affine space. This allows us to represent these quotients as toric varie…
When a reductive group $G$ acts linearly on a complex projective scheme $X$ there is a stratification of $X$ into $G$-invariant locally closed subschemes, with an open stratum $X^{ss}$ formed by the semistable points in the sense of Mumford's geometric invariant theory which has a categorical quotient $X^{ss} \to X//G$. In this article we describe a method for constructing quotients of the unstable strata. As an application, we construct moduli spaces of sheaves of fixed Harder-Narasimhan type with some extra data (an '$n$-rigidification') on a projective base.
Many moduli spaces are constructed as quotients of group actions; this paper surveys the classical theory, as well as recent progress and applications. We review geometric invariant theory for reductive groups and how it is used to construct moduli spaces, and explain two new developments extending this theory to non-reductive groups and to stacks, which enable the construction of new moduli spaces.
Let $X$ be flat scheme over $\mathbb{Z}$ such that its base change, $X_p$, to $\bar{\mathbb{F}}_p$ is Frobenius split for all primes $p$. Let $G$ be a reductive group scheme over $\mathbb{Z}$ acting on $X$. In this paper, we prove a result on the $N_p$ property for line bundles on GIT quotients of $X_{\mathbb{C}}$ for the action of $G_{\mathbb{C}}$. We apply our result to the special cases of (1) an action of a finite group on the projective space and (2) the action of a maximal torus on the flag variety of type $A_n$.
We provide a Hilbert-Mumford Criterion for actions of reductive groups $G$ on $Q$-factorial complex varieties. The result allows to construct open subsets admitting a good quotient by $G$ from certain maximal open subsets admitting a good quotient by a maximal torus of $G$. As an application, we show how to obtain all invariant open subsets with good quotient for a given $G$-action on a complete $Q$-factorial toric variety.
Let $M$ be an irreducible smooth projective variety, defined over an algebraically closed field, equipped with an action of a connected reductive affine algebraic group $G$, and let ${\mathcal L}$ be a $G$--equivariant very ample line bundle on $M$. Assume that the GIT quotient $M/\!\!/G$ is a nonempty set. We prove that the homomorphism of algebraic fundamental groups $π_1(M)\, \longrightarrow\, π_1(M/\!\!/G)$, induced by the rational map $M\, \longrightarrow\, M/\!\!/G$, is an isomorphism. If $k\,=\, \mathbb C$, then we show that the above rational map $M\, \longrightarrow \, M/\!\!/G$ induc…
We prove that rational and 1-rational singularities of complex spaces are stable under taking quotients by holomorphic actions of reductive and compact Lie groups. This extends a result of Boutot to the analytic category and yields a refinement of his result in the algebraic category. As one of the main technical tools vanishing theorems for cohomology groups with support on fibres of resolutions are proven.
