A complex manifold $X$ satisfies the Oka-Grauert property if the inclusion $\Cal O(S,X) \hookrightarrow \Cal C(S,X)$ is a weak equivalence for every Stein manifold $S$, where the spaces of holomorphic and continuous maps from $S$ to $X$ are given the compact-open topology. Gromov's Oka principle states that if $X$ has a spray, then it has the Oka-Grauert property. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Oka-Grauert property using homotopical algebra. We embed the category of complex manifolds into the model category of simplicial sheaves on the site of Stein manifolds. Our main result is that the Oka-Grauert property is equivalent to $X$ representing a finite homotopy sheaf on the Stein site. This expresses the Oka-Grauert property in purely holomorphic terms, without reference to continuous maps.
We apply concepts and tools from abstract homotopy theory to complex analysis and geometry, continuing our development of the idea that the Oka Principle is about fibrancy in suitable model structures. We explicitly factor a holomorphic map between Stein manifolds through mapping cylinders in three different model structures and use these factorizations to prove implications between ostensibly different Oka properties of complex manifolds and holomorphic maps. We show that for Stein manifolds, several Oka properties coincide and are characterized by the geometric condition of ellipticity. Goin…
Oka theory has its roots in the classical Oka-Grauert principle whose main result is Grauert's classification of principal holomorphic fiber bundles over Stein spaces. Modern Oka theory concerns holomorphic maps from Stein manifolds and Stein spaces to Oka manifolds. It has emerged as a subfield of complex geometry in its own right since the appearance of a seminal paper of M. Gromov in 1989. In this expository paper we discuss Oka manifolds and Oka maps. We describe equivalent characterizations of Oka manifolds, the functorial properties of this class, and geometric sufficient conditions for …
The basic result of Oka theory, due to Gromov, states that every continuous map $f$ from a Stein manifold $S$ to an elliptic manifold $X$ can be deformed to a holomorphic map. It is natural to ask whether this can be done for all $f$ at once, in a way that depends continuously on $f$ and leaves $f$ fixed if it is holomorphic to begin with. In other words, is $\scrO(S,X)$ a deformation retract of $\scrC(S,X)$? We prove that it is if $S$ has a strictly plurisubharmonic Morse exhaustion with finitely many critical points; in particular, if $S$ is affine algebraic. The only property of $X$ used in…
We develop complex function theory within certain algebras of holomorphic functions on coverings of Stein manifolds. This, in particular, includes the results on holomorphic extension from complex submanifolds, corona type theorems, properties of divisors, holomorphic analogs of the Peter-Weyl approximation theorem, Hartogs type theorems, characterization of uniqueness sets. The model examples of these algebras are: (1) Bohr's algebra of holomorphic almost periodic functions on tube domains; (2) algebra of all fibrewise bounded holomorphic functions (e.g., arising in the corona problem for $H^…
The paper is related to the author's talk at the Hayama Symposium in Complex Analysis in December 2000. In section 1 we survey results on the Oka principle for sections of holomorphic submersions over Stein manifolds. In section 2 we apply these results to the lifting problem for holomorphic mappings from Stein manifolds, and in section 3 we apply them to the problem of removability of intersections of holomorphic maps from Stein manifolds with closed complex subvarieties of the target space.
We establish basic results of complex function theory within certain algebras of holomorphic functions on coverings of Stein manifolds (such as algebras of Bohr's holomorphic almost periodic functions on tube domains or algebras of all fibrewise bounded holomorphic functions arising, e.g., in the corona problem for $H^\infty$). In particular, in this context we obtain results on holomorphic extension from complex submanifolds, properties of divisors, corona type theorems, holomorphic analogues of the Peter-Weyl approximation theorem, Hartogs type theorems, characterizations of uniqueness sets,…
Let X and Y be complex manifolds. One says that maps from X to Y satisfy the Oka principle if the inclusion of the space of holomorphic maps from X to Y into the space of continuous maps is a weak homotopy equivalence. In 1957 H. Grauert proved the Oka principle for maps from Stein manifolds to complex Lie groups and homogeneous spaces, as well as for sections of fiber bundles with homogeneous fibers over a Stein base. In 1989 M. Gromov extended Grauert's result to sections of submersions over a Stein base which admit dominating sprays over small open sets in the base; for proof see [F. Forstn…
This is a survey on the homotopy principle in complex analysis on Stein manifolds, also called the Oka principle in this context. We concentrate on the following topics: the Oka-Grauert principle (classification of holomorphic vector bundles); the homotopy principle for holomorphic mappings from Stein manifolds and, more generally, for sections of holomorphic submersions with sprays; question on removability of intersections of holomorphic mappings with complex subvarieties; embeddings and immersions of Stein manifolds in affine spaces of minimal dimension; embeddings of open Riemann surfaces …
We study the dynamics of a generic endomorphism $f$ of an Oka-Stein manifold $X$. Such manifolds include all connected linear algebraic groups and, more generally, all Stein homogeneous spaces of complex Lie groups. We give several descriptions of the Fatou set and the Julia set of $f$. In particular, we show that the Julia set is the derived set of the set of attracting periodic points of $f$ and that it is also the closure of the set of repelling periodic points of $f$. Among other results, we prove that $f$ is chaotic on the Julia set and that every periodic point of $f$ is hyperbolic. We a…
We prove a theorem of M. Gromov (Oka's principle for holomorphic sections of elliptic bundles, J. Amer. Math. Soc. 2, 851-897, 1989) to the effect that sections of certain holomorphic submersions h from a complex manifold Z onto a Stein manifold X satisfy the Oka principle, meaning that the inclusion of the space of holomorphic sections into the space of continuous sections is a weak homotopy equivalence. The Oka principle holds if the submersion admits a fiber-dominating spray over a small neighborhood of any point in X. This extends a classical result of Grauert (Holomorphe Funktionen mit We…
Let $G$ be a reductive complex Lie group acting holomorphically on Stein manifolds $X$ and $Y$. Let $p_X\colon X\to Q_X$ and $p_Y\colon Y\to Q_Y$ be the quotient mappings. Assume that we have a biholomorphism $Q:= Q_X\to Q_Y$ and an open cover $\{U_i\}$ of $Q$ and $G$-biholomorphisms $Φ_i\colon p_X^{-1}(U_i)\to p_Y^{-1}(U_i)$ inducing the identity on $U_i$. There is a sheaf of groups $\mathcal A$ on $Q$ such that the isomorphism classes of all possible $Y$ is the cohomology set $H^1(Q,\mathcal A)$. The main question we address is to what extent $H^1(Q,\mathcal A)$ contains only topological inf…
In this paper we present the main developments in Oka theory since the publication of my book Stein Manifolds and Holomorphic Mappings (The Homotopy Principle in Complex Analysis)}, Second Edition, Springer, 2017. We also give several new results, examples and constructions of Oka domains in Euclidean and projective spaces. Furthermore, we show that for $n>1$ the fibre $\mathbb C^n$ in a Stein family can degenerate to a non-Oka fibre, thereby answering a question of Takeo Ohsawa. Several open problems are discussed.
In this paper we obtain a Carleman approximation theorem for maps from Stein manifolds to Oka manifolds. More precisely, we show that under suitable complex analytic conditions on a totally real set $ M $ of a Stein manifold $X$, every smooth map $ X \rightarrow Y $ to an Oka manifold $Y$ satisfying the Cauchy-Riemann equations along $ M $ up to order $ k $ can be $ \mathscr{C}^k $-Carleman approximated by holomorphic maps $ X \rightarrow Y $. Moreover, if $ K $ is a compact $ \mathscr{O}(X) $-convex set such that $ K \cup M $ is $ \mathscr{O}(X) $-convex, then we can $ \mathscr{C}^k $-Carlema…
We prove that the classical Oka property of a complex manifold Y, concerning the existence and homotopy classification of holomorphic mappings from Stein manifolds to Y, is equivalent to a Runge approximation property for holomorphic maps from compact convex sets in Euclidean spaces to Y.
A complex manifold Y satisfies the Convex Approximation Property (CAP) if every holomorphic map from a neighborhood of a compact convex set K in a complex Euclidean space C^n to Y can be approximated, uniformly on K, by entire maps from C^n to Y. If X is a reduced Stein space and Z is a stratified holomorphic fiber bundle over X all of whose fibers satisfy CAP, then sections of Z over X enjoy the Oka property with (jet) interpolation and approximation. Previously this has been proved by the author in the case when X is a Stein manifold without singularities (Ann. Math., 163 (2006), 689-707, ma…
We survey recent work, published since 2015, on equivariant Oka theory. The main results described in the survey are as follows. Homotopy principles for equivariant isomorphisms of Stein manifolds on which a reductive complex Lie group $G$ acts. Applications to the linearisation problem. A parametric Oka principle for sections of a bundle $E$ of homogeneous spaces for a group bundle $\mathscr G$, all over a reduced Stein space $X$ with compatible actions of a reductive complex group on $E$, $\mathscr G$, and $X$. Application to the classification of generalised principal bundles with a group a…
We embed the category of complex manifolds into the simplicial category of prestacks on the simplicial site of Stein manifolds, a prestack being a contravariant simplicial functor from the site to the category of simplicial sets. The category of prestacks carries model structures, one of them defined for the first time here, which allow us to develop "holomorphic homotopy theory". More specifically, we use homotopical algebra to study lifting and extension properties of holomorphic maps, such as those given by the Oka Principle. We prove that holomorphic maps satisfy certain versions of the Ok…
We give the following positive answer to Gromov's question (in "Oka's principle for holomorphic sections of elliptic bundles", J. Amer. Math. Soc. 2, 851-897 (1989), 3.4.(D), page 881). THEOREM: If every holomorphic map from a compact convex set in a complex Euclidean space C^n to a certain complex manifold Y is a uniform limit of entire maps of C^n to Y, then Y enjoys the parametric Oka property. In particular, for any reduced Stein space X the inclusion of the space of holomorphic maps of X to Y into the space of continuous maps is a weak homotopy equivalence. This shows that all Oka type pr…
Gromov, in his seminal 1989 paper on the Oka principle, introduced the notion of an elliptic manifold and proved that every continuous map from a Stein manifold to an elliptic manifold is homotopic to a holomorphic map. We show that a much stronger Oka principle holds in the special case of maps from certain open Riemann surfaces called circular domains into CxC*, namely that every continuous map is homotopic to a proper holomorphic embedding. An important ingredient is a generalisation to CxC* of recent results of Wold and Forstneric on the long-standing problem of properly embedding open Rie…
We prove closing lemmas for automorphisms of a Stein manifold with the density property and for endomorphisms of an Oka-Stein manifold. In the former case we need to impose a new tameness condition. It follows that hyperbolic periodic points are dense in the tame non-wandering set of a generic automorphism of a Stein manifold with the density property and in the non-wandering set of a generic endomorphism of an Oka-Stein manifold. These are the first results about holomorphic dynamics on Oka manifolds. We strengthen previous results of ours on the existence and genericity of chaotic volume-pre…
It is an elementary fact that the action by holomorphic automorphisms on C^n is infinitely transitive, i.e., m-transitive for any m in N. The same holds on any Stein manifold with the holomorphic density property X. We study a parametrized case: we consider m points on X parametrized by a Stein manifold W, and seek a family of automorphisms of X, parametrized by W, putting them into a standard form which does not depend on the parameter. This general transitivity is shown to enjoy an Oka principle, to the effect that the obstruction to a holomorphic solution is of a purely topological nature. …
Given a Stein manifold with the density property, we show that under a suitable topological condition it is possible to prescribe derivatives at a finite number of points to automorphisms depending holomorphically on a Stein parameter. This is an Oka property of the manifold and is related to its holomorphic flexibility.
Given a holomorphic submersion of reduced complex spaces, we prove that the basic Oka property of the submersion implies the parametric Oka property. This generalizes the corresponding result for complex manifolds (F. Forstneric, Oka Manifolds, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I, 347 (2009) 1017-1020). It follows that a stratified elliptic (or subelliptic) holomorphic submersion, or a stratified holomorphic fiber bundle whose fibers are Oka manifolds, enjoys the parametric Oka property. As an application we give a parametric version of the factorization theorem due to Ivarsson and Kutzschebauch (A…
Let $X$ be a connected Oka manifold, and let $S$ be a Stein manifold with $\mathrm{dim} S \geq \mathrm{dim} X$. We show that every continuous map $S\to X$ is homotopic to a surjective strongly dominating holomorphic map $S\to X$. We also find strongly dominating algebraic morphisms from the affine $n$-space onto any compact $n$-dimensional algebraically subelliptic manifold. Motivated by these results, we propose a new holomorphic flexibility property of complex manifolds, the basic Oka property with surjectivity, which could potentially provide another characterization of the class of Oka man…
Over the past decade, the class of Oka manifolds has emerged from Gromov's seminal work on the Oka principle. Roughly speaking, Oka manifolds are complex manifolds that are the target of "many" holomorphic maps from affine spaces. They are "dual" to Stein manifolds and "opposite" to Kobayashi-hyperbolic manifolds. The prototypical examples are complex homogeneous spaces, but there are many other examples: there are many ways to construct new Oka manifolds from old. The class of Oka manifolds has good formal properties, partly explained by a close connection with abstract homotopy theory. These…
The classical Grauert and Ramspott theorems constitute the foundation of the Oka principle on Stein spaces. In this paper we establish analogous results on the maximal ideal space $M(H^\infty)$ of the Banach algebra $H^\infty$ of bounded holomorphic functions on the open unit disk $\mathbb D\subset\mathbb C$. We illustrate our results by some examples and applications to the theory of operator-valued $H^\infty$ functions.
The name of Oka principle, or Oka-Grauert principle, is traditionally used to refer to the holomorphic incarnation of the homotopy principle: on a Stein space, every problem that can be solved in the continuous category, can be solved in the holomorphic category as well. In this note, we begin the study of the same kind of questions on a Levi-flat manifold; more precisely, we try to obtain a classification of CR-bundles on a semiholomorphic foliation of type (n, 1). Our investigation should only be considered a preliminary exploration, as it deals only with some particular cases, either in ter…
We construct holomorphically varying families of Fatou-Bieberbach domains with given centres in the complement of any compact polynomially convex subset $K$ of $\mathbb C^n$ for $n>1$. This provides a simple proof of the recent result of Yuta Kusakabe to the effect that the complement $\mathbb C^n\setminus K$ of any polynomially convex subset $K$ of $\mathbb C^n$ is an Oka manifold. The analogous result is obtained with $\mathbb C^n$ replaced by any Stein manifold with the density property.
Oka theory has its roots in the classical Oka principle in complex analysis. It has emerged as a subfield of complex geometry in its own right since the appearance of a seminal paper of M. Gromov in 1989. Following a brief review of Stein manifolds, we discuss the recently introduced category of Oka manifolds and Oka maps. We consider geometric sufficient conditions for being Oka, the most important of which is ellipticity, introduced by Gromov. We explain how Oka manifolds and maps naturally fit into an abstract homotopy-theoretic framework. We describe recent applications and some key open p…
In this paper we establish a basic version of the Oka principle for multivalued sections of ramified holomorphic maps h from a complex manifold Z onto a Stein manifold X. If the ramification locus of h projects into a closed complex subvariety X' of X and if h admits a fiber dominating spray over a small neighborhood of any point in X\X' then any multivalued continuous section of h which is holomorphic in a neighborhood of X' and unramified in X\X' can be homotopically deformed to a global holomorphic multivalued section. The corresponding results for sections of unramified submersions were es…
We give a proof of the following theorem of M. Gromov (Oka's principle for holomorphic sections of elliptic bundles, J. Amer. Math. Soc., 2 (1989), 851-897). Let Z be a holomorphic fiber bundle over a Stein manifold. If the fiber of Z admits a dominating holomorphic spray then the inclusion of the space of global holomorphic sections of Z into the space of continuous sections is a weak homotopy equivalence. In the classical case when the fiber is a complex Lie group or a homogeneous space this was proved by H. Grauert (Math. Ann., 135 (1958), 263--273). For further results in this direction se…
A complex manifold $Y$ is said to have the interpolation property if a holomorphic map to $Y$ from a subvariety $S$ of a reduced Stein space $X$ has a holomorphic extension to $X$ if it has a continuous extension. Taking $S$ to be a contractible submanifold of $X=\mathbb{C}^n$ gives an ostensibly much weaker property called the convex interpolation property. By a deep theorem of Forstnerič, the two properties are equivalent. They (and about a dozen other nontrivially equivalent properties) define the class of Oka manifolds. This paper is the first attempt to develop Oka theory for singular tar…
We prove a parametric Oka principle for equivariant sections of a holomorphic fibre bundle $E$ with a structure group bundle $\mathscr G$ on a reduced Stein space $X$, such that the fibre of $E$ is a homogeneous space of the fibre of $\mathscr G$, with the complexification $K^\mathbb C$ of a compact real Lie group $K$ acting on $X$, $\mathscr G$, and $E$. Our main result is that the inclusion of the space of $K^\mathbb C$-equivariant holomorphic sections of $E$ over $X$ into the space of $K$-equivariant continuous sections is a weak homotopy equivalence. The result has a wide scope; we describ…
Let $n>1$ be an integer. We prove that holomorphic maps from Stein manifolds $X$ of dimension $<n$ to the complement $\mathbb{C}^n\setminus L$ of a compact convex set $L\subset\mathbb{C}^n$ satisfy the basic Oka property with approximation and interpolation. If $L$ is polynomially convex then the same holds when $2\dim X < n$. We also construct proper holomorphic maps, immersions and embeddings $X\to\mathbb{C}^n$ with additional control of the range, thereby extending classical results of Remmert, Bishop and Narasimhan.
We consider the analogue for regular maps from affine varieties to suitable algebraic manifolds of Oka theory for holomorphic maps from Stein spaces to suitable complex manifolds. The goal is to understand when the obstructions to approximation or interpolation are purely topological. We propose a definition of an algebraic Oka property, which is stronger than the analytic Oka property. We review the known examples of algebraic manifolds satisfying the algebraic Oka property and add a new class of examples: smooth nondegenerate toric varieties. On the other hand, we show that the algebraic ana…
Suppose that Y is a complex manifold with the property that any holomorphic map from a compact convex set in a complex Euclidean space C^n (for any n) to Y is a uniform limit of entire maps from C^n to Y. We prove that a holomorphic map from a closed complex subvariety X_0 in a Stein manifold X to the manifold Y extends to a holomorphic map of X to Y provided that it extends to a continuous map. We then establish the equivalence of four Oka-type properties of a complex manifold. We also generalize a theorem of Siu and Demailly on the existence of open Stein neighborhoods of Stein subvarieties …
Gromov, in his seminal 1989 paper on the Oka principle, proved that every continuous map from a Stein manifold into an elliptic manifold is homotopic to a holomorphic map. Previously we have shown that, given a continuous map $X \to \C\times\C^*$ from a finitely connected planar domain $X$ without isolated boundary points, a stronger Oka property holds, namely that the map is homotopic to a proper holomorphic embedding. Here we show that every continuous map from a finitely connected planar domain, possibly with punctures, into $\C\times\C^*$ is homotopic to a proper immersion that identifies …
We prove that the openness of the set of maps, between a Stein manifold and an Oka manifold, transverse to a stratification of a complex analytic subvariety in the target implies that the stratification is Whitney $a$-regular. Our result can be seen as a complex version of Trotman's theorem.
We study when there exists a dense holomorphic curve in a space of holomorphic maps from a Stein space. We first show that for any bounded convex domain $Ω\Subset\mathbb{C}^n$ and any connected complex manifold $Y$, the space $\mathcal{O}(Ω,Y)$ contains a dense holomorphic disc. Our second result states that $Y$ is an Oka manifold if and only if for any Stein space $X$ there exists a dense entire curve in every path component of $\mathcal{O}(X,Y)$. In the second half of this paper, we apply the above results to the theory of universal functions. It is proved that for any bounded convex domain …
Stein neighborhood bases for complex--totally real unions
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science（布加勒斯特大学数学与计算机科学系）；Institute of Mathematics “Simion Stoilow” of the Romanian Academy（罗马尼亚科学院西米恩·斯托伊洛瓦数学研究所）
Let $X$ be an elliptic curve and $\mathbb{P}$ the Riemann sphere. Since $X$ is compact, it is a deep theorem of Douady that the set $\mathcal{O}(X,\mathbb{P})$ consisting of holomorphic maps $X\to \mathbb{P}$ admits a complex structure. If $R_n$ denotes the set of maps of degree $n$, then Namba has shown for $n\geq2$ that $R_n$ is a $2n$-dimensional complex manifold. We study holomorphic flexibility properties of the spaces $R_2$ and $R_3$. Firstly, we show that $R_2$ is homogeneous and hence an Oka manifold. Secondly, we present our main theorem, that there is a $6$-sheeted branched covering …
Let $G$ be a reductive complex Lie group acting holomorphically on normal Stein spaces $X$ and $Y$, which are locally $G$-biholomorphic over a common categorical quotient $Q$. When is there a global $G$-biholomorphism $X\to Y$? If the actions of $G$ on $X$ and $Y$ are what we, with justification, call generic, we prove that the obstruction to solving this local-to-global problem is topological and provide sufficient conditions for it to vanish. Our main tool is the equivariant version of Grauert's Oka principle due to Heinzner and Kutzschebauch. We prove that $X$ and $Y$ are $G$-biholomorphic …
Let X be a Stein manifold and let Y be a complex manifold which admits a spray in the sense of Gromov (Oka's principle for holomorphic sections of elliptic bundles, J. Amer. Math. Soc. 2, pp. 851-897 (1989)). We prove that for every closed complex subvariety X_0 of X and for every continuous map f_0 from X to Y whose restriction to X_0 is holomorphic there exists a homotopy of maps f_t from X to Y whose restrictions to X_0 agree with f_0 and such that the map f_1 is holomorphic on X. We obtain analogous results for sections of holomorphic submersions with sprays over Stein manifolds or Stein s…
We show that a complex projective manifold X which satisfies the Gromov's h-principle is `special', and raise some questions about the reverse implication, the extension to the quasi-K\" ahler case, and the relationships of these properties to the `Oka' property. The guiding principle is that the existence of many Stein manifolds which have degenerate Kobayashi pseudometric gives strong obstructions to the complex hyperbolicity of X satisfying the h-principle.
In the last decades affine algebraic varieties and Stein manifolds with big (infinite-dimensional) automorphism groups have been intensively studied. Several notions expressing that the automorphisms group is big have been proposed. All of them imply that the manifold in question is an Oka-Forstnerič manifold. This important notion has also recently merged from the intensive studies around the homotopy principle in Complex Analysis. This homotopy principle, which goes back to the 1930's, has had an enormous impact on the development of the area of Several Complex Variables and the number of it…
Let D be a relatively compact strongly pseudoconvex domain in a Stein manifold, and let Y be a complex manifold. We prove that the set A(D,Y), consisting of all continuous maps from the closure of D to Y which are holomorphic in D, is a complex Banach manifold. When D is the unit disc in C (or any other topologically trivial strongly pseudoconvex domain in a Stein manifold), A(D,Y) is locally modeled on the Banach space A(D,C^n)=A(D)^n with n=dim Y. Analogous results hold for maps which are holomorphic in D and of class C^r up to the boundary for any positive integer r. We also establish the O…
We study holomorphic Legendrian curves in the standard complex contact structure on the projectivised cotangent bundle $X=\mathbb P(T^*Z)$ of a complex manifold $Z$ of dimension at least $2$. We provide a detailed analysis of Legendrian curves degenerating to vertical curves and obtain several approximation and general position theorems. In particular, we prove that any vertical holomorphic curve $M\to X$ from a compact bordered Riemann surface $M$ can be deformed to a horizontal Legendrian curve by an arbitrarily small deformation. A similar result is proved in the parametric setting, provide…
