36 pages. Improved version. Introduction was completely rewritten with five newly added figures to help to illustrate the ideas. The introduction is written with nonspecialists in mind, in particular, a simple, yet quite informative example is used throughout to explain the ideas behind GIT quotients, the Chow quotient, and our topological approaches
This paper studies the canonical Chow quotient of a smooth projective variety by a reductive algebraic group. The main purpose is to give some topological interpretations and characterization of Chow quotient which have the advantage to be more intuitive and geometric. This is to be done over the field of complex numbers and in the languages that are familiar to topologists and differential geometers.
More precisely, the main observation of this paper is that, over the field of complex numbers, the Chow quotient admits symplectic and other topological interpretations, namely, symplectically, the moduli spaces of stable orbits with prescribed momentum charges; and topologically, the moduli space of stable action-manifolds. In addition, we give a computable characterization of the Chow cycles of the Chow quotient, using the so-called perturbing-translating-specializing relation.
We show that the moduli space of stable n-pointed rational curves can be flatly degenerated to a projective toric variety. We arrive at this by showing that the Chow quotients of the Grassmannians admit toric degenerations, which in turn, follows from a theorem that we prove for toric degenerations of more general Chow quotients. Along the way, we also argued that GIT quotient of a flat family is again flat. In particular, all GIT quotients of flag varieties by maximal tori can be flatly degenerated to projective toric varieties ([9] and [12]).
We consider torus actions on Mori dream spaces and ask whether the associated Chow quotient is again a Mori dream space and, if so, what does its Cox ring look like. We provide general tools for the study of these problems and give solutions for k*-actions on smooth quadrics.
We give explicit equations for the Chow and Hilbert quotients of a projective scheme X by the action of an algebraic torus T in an auxiliary toric variety. As a consequence we provide GIT descriptions of these canonical quotients, and obtain other GIT quotients of X by variation of GIT quotient. We apply these results to find equations for the moduli space \bar{M}_{0,n} of stable genus zero n-pointed curves as a subvariety of a smooth toric variety defined via tropical methods.
Let $X$ be a projective normal toric variety and $T_0$ a rank one subtorus of the defining torus of $X$. We show that the normalization of the Chow quotient $X//T_0$, in the sense of Kapranov-Sturmfels-Zelevinsky, coarsely represents the moduli space of stable log maps to $X$ with discrete data given by $T_0\subset X$.
We consider 3-dimensional toric Calabi-Yau singularities which arise as cones over the Chow quotient for a torus acting on projective space. We show that the Chow forms of the closures of the codimension 2 orbits can very easily be written down from the quiver with superpotential which corresponds with the given CY3 singularity under the correspondence between CY3 singularities and quivers with superpotential which is part of the AdS/CFT correspondence in physics. We also prove that this provides a new method for computing the principal A-determinant in the theory of Gelfand-Kapranov-Zelevinsk…
The literature on maximal torus orbits in the Grassmannian is vast; in this paper we initiate a program to extend this to diagonal subtori. Our main focus is generalizing portions of Kapranov's seminal work on Chow quotient compactifications of these orbit spaces. This leads naturally to discrete polymatroids, generalizing the matroidal framework underlying Kapranov's results. By generalizing the Gelfand-MacPherson isomorphism, these Chow quotients are seen to compactify spaces of arrangements of parameterized linear subspaces, and a generalized Gale duality holds here. A special case is birat…
We study the Fulton-Macpherson operational Chow rings of good moduli spaces of properly stable, smooth, Artin stacks. Such spaces are étale locally isomorphic to geometric invariant theory quotients of affine schemes, and are therefore natural extensions of GIT quotients. Our main result is that, with rational coefficients, every operational class can be represented by a so-called topologically strong cycle on the corresponding stack. Moreover, this cycle is unique modulo rational equivalence on the stack. Using out methods, we prove that if $X$ is the good moduli space of a properly stable, s…
Given a projective algebraic variety $X$, let $Π_p(X)$ denote the monoid of effective algebraic equivalence classes of effective algebraic cycles on $X$. The $p$-th Euler-Chow series of $X$ is an element in the formal monoid-ring $Z[[Π_p(X)]]$ defined in terms of Euler characteristics of the Chow varieties $\cvpd{p}α{X}$ of $X$, with $α\inΠ_p(X)$. We provide a systematic treatment of such series, and give projective bundle formulas which generalize previous results by B. Lawson and S.S.Yau and Elizondo. The techniques used involve the Chow quotients introduced by Kapranov, and this allows the …
We provide a direct proof, valid in arbitrary characteristic, of the result originally proven by Kapranov over $\mathbb{C}$, that the Hilbert and Chow quotients $(\mathbb{P}^1)^n//PGL2$ are isomorphic to $\overline{M}_{0,n}$. In both cases this is done by explicitly constructing the universal family and then showing that the induced morphism is an isomorphism onto its image. The proofs of these results in many ways reduce to the case $n = 4$; in an appendix we outline a formalism of this phenomenon relating to certain operads.
We show the existence of a regular universal quotient as a smooth commutative algebraic group of the Chow group of 0-cycles on a projective reduced variety, and give over the field of complex numbers an analytic description of it. This generalizes the classical theory of the Albanese. The Chow group of 0-cycles is then isomorphic to this smooth algebraic group if and only if it is finite dimensional in the sense of Mumford. This generalizes the classical theorem of Roitman.
We prove a formula for Chow groups of $Quot$-schemes which resolve degeneracy loci of a map between vector bundles, under expected dimension conditions. This result provides a unified way to understand known formulae for various geometric situations such as blowups, Cayley's trick, projectivizations, Grassmannian bundles, flops from Springer type resolutions, as well as provide new phenomena such as formulae for Grassmannain type flips/flops and virtual flips. We also give applications to blowups of determinantal ideals, moduli spaces of linear series on curves, and Hilbert schemes of points o…
The aim of this note is to announce some results on the GIT problem for the Hilbert and Chow scheme of curves of degree d and genus g in P^{d-g}, whose full details will appear in a subsequent paper. In particular, we extend the previous results of L. Caporaso up to d>4(2g-2) and we observe that this is sharp. In the range 2(2g-2)<d<7/2(2g-2), we get a complete new description of the GIT quotient. As a corollary, we get a new compactification of the universal Jacobian over the moduli space of pseudo-stable curves.
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…
We introduce a certain compactification of the space of projective configurations i.e. orbits of the group $PGL(k)$ on the space of $n$ - tuples of points in $P^{k-1}$ in general position. This compactification differs considerably from Mumford's geometric invariant theory quotient. It is obtained by considering limit position (in the Chow variety) of the closures of generic orbits. The same result will be obtained if we study orbits of the maximal torus on the Grassmannian $G(k,n)$. We study in detail the closures of the torus orbits and their "visible contours" which are Veronese varieties i…
We consider Kapranov's Chow quotient compactification of the moduli space of ordered n-tuples of hyperplanes in P^{r-1} in linear general position. For r=2 this is canonically identified with the Grothendieck-Knudsen compactification of M_{0,n} which has among others the nice properties 1) Modular meaning: stable pointed rational curves 2) Canonical description of limits of one parameter degenerations 3) Natural Mori theoretic meaning: log canonical compactification. We prove (1-2) generalize naturally to all (r,n), but that (3), which we view as the deepest, fails except possibly in the cases…
We define the Chow ring of the classifying space of a linear algebraic group. In all the examples where we can compute it, such as the symmetric groups and the orthogonal groups, it is isomorphic to a natural quotient of the complex cobordism ring of the classifying space, a topological invariant. We apply this to get torsion information on the Chow groups of varieties defined as quotients by finite groups. This generalizes Atiyah and Hirzebruch's use of such varieties to give counterexamples to the Hodge conjecture with integer coefficients.
We find a new presentation of the stack of hyperelliptic curves of odd genus as a quotient stack and we use it to compute its integral Chow ring by means of equivariant intersection theory.
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…
We give a presentation for the stack of rational curves with at most 1 node as the quotient by GL(3) of an open set in a 6-dimensional irreducible representation. We then use equivariant intersection theory to calculate the integral Chow ring of this stack.
The focus of our paper is on the complex Grassmann manifolds $G_{n,2}$ which appear as one of the fundamental objects in developing the interaction between algebraic geometry and algebraic topology. In his well-known paper Kapranov has proved that the Deligne-Mumford compactification $\overline{\mathcal{M}}(0,n)$ of $n$-pointed curves of genus zero can be realized as the Chow quotient $G_{n,2}\!/\!/(\mathbb{C} ^{\ast})^{n}$. In our recent papers, the constructive description of the orbit space $G_{n,2}/T^n$ has been obtained. In getting this result our notions of the CW-complex of the admissib…
The Chow quotient of a toric variety by a subtorus, as defined by Kapranov-Sturmfels-Zelevinsky, coarsely represents the main component of the moduli space of stable toric varieties with a map to a fixed projective toric variety, as constructed by Alexeev and Brion. We show that, after endowing both spaces with the structure of a logarithmic stack, the resulting spaces are isomorphic. Along the way, we construct the Chow quotient stack and demonstrate several properties that it satisfies.
Let X be an affine T-variety. We study two different quotients for the action of T on X: the toric Chow quotient X/_CT and the toric Hilbert scheme H. We introduce a notion of the main component H_0 of H which parameterizes general T-orbit closures in X and their flat limits. The main component U_0 of the universal family U over H is a preimage of H_0. We define an analogue of a universal family W_X over the main component of the X/_CT. We show that the toric Chow morphism restricted on the main components lifts to a birational projective morphism from U_0 to W_X. The variety W_X also provides…
For any odd integer $d$, we give a presentation for the integral Chow ring of the stack $\Mcal_{0}(\Pro^r, d)$, as a quotient of the polynomial ring $\Z[c_1,c_2]$. We describe an efficient set of generators for the ideal of relations, and compute them in generating series form. The paper concludes with explicit computations of some examples for low values of $d$ and $r$, and a conjecture for a minimal set of generators.
We show that the GIT quotients of suitable loci in the Hilbert and Chow schemes of 4-canonically embedded curves of genus $g\ge 3$ are the moduli space $\bar{M}_g^{\text{ps}}$ of pseudo-stable curves constructed by Schubert in \cite{Schubert} using Chow varieties and 3-canonical models. The only new ingredient needed in the Hilbert scheme variant is a more careful analysis of the stability with respect to a certain 1-ps $λ$ of the $m^{\text{th}}$ Hilbert points of curves $X$ with elliptic tails. We compute the exact weight with which $λ$ acts, and not just the leading term in $m$ of this weigh…
Given a smooth projective variety $M$ endowed with a faithful action of a finite group $G$, following Jarvis-Kaufmann-Kimura and Fantechi-Göttsche, we define the orbifold motive (or Chen-Ruan motive) of the quotient stack $[M/G]$ as an algebra object in the category of Chow motives. Inspired by Ruan, one can formulate a motivic version of his Cohomological HyperKähler Resolution Conjecture. We prove this motivic version, as well as its K-theoretic analogue conjectured by Jarvis-Kaufmann-Kimura, in two situations related to an abelian surface $A$ and a positive integer $n$. Case (A) concerns Hi…
We calculate Chow quotients of some families of symmetric \(T\)-varieties. In complexity two we obtain new examples of Kähler-Einstein metrics by bounding the symmetric alpha invariant of their orbifold quotients. As an additional application we determine the homeomorpism class of the orbit space of the compact torus action.
We study mixed versions of the classical quotient functor from Chow motives to numerical motives. We compare two natural definitions, which turn out to be very different. We investigate fullness, conservativity and exactness of these two functors.
We define the Chow $t$-structure on the $\infty$-category of motivic spectra $SH(k)$ over an arbitrary base field $k$. We identify the heart of this $t$-structure $SH(k)^{c\heartsuit}$ when the exponential characteristic of $k$ is inverted. Restricting to the cellular subcategory, we identify the Chow heart $SH(k)^{cell, c\heartsuit}$ as the category of even graded $MU_{2*}MU$-comodules. Furthermore, we show that the $\infty$-category of modules over the Chow truncated sphere spectrum is algebraic. Our results generalize the ones in Gheorghe--Wang--Xu in three aspects: To integral results; To …
We give the first examples of finite groups G such that the Chow ring of the classifying space BG depends on the base field, even for fields containing the algebraic closure of Q. As a tool, we give several characterizations of the varieties which satisfy Kunneth properties for Chow groups or motivic homology. We define the (compactly supported) motive of a quotient stack in Voevodsky's derived category of motives. This makes it possible to ask when the motive of BG is mixed Tate, which is equivalent to the motivic Kunneth property. We prove that BG is mixed Tate for various "well-behaved" fin…
Let X be a separated scheme of finite type over a field k and D a non-reduced effective Cartier divisor on it. We attach to the pair (X, D) a cycle complex with modulus, whose homotopy groups - called higher Chow groups with modulus - generalize additive higher Chow groups of Bloch-Esnault, Rülling, Park and Krishna-Levine, and that sheafified on $X_{Zar}$ gives a candidate definition for a relative motivic complex of the pair, that we compute in weight 1. When X is smooth over k and D is such that $D_{red}$ is a normal crossing divisor, we construct a fundamental class in the cohomology of re…
Let F be the complete flag variety over Spec(Z) with the tautological filtration 0 \subset E_1 \subset E_2 \subset ... \subset E_n=E of the trivial bundle E over F. The trivial hermitian metric on E(\C) induces metrics on the quotient line bundles L_i(\C). Let \hat{c}_1(L_i) be the first Chern class of L_i in the arithmetic Chow ring \hat{CH}(F) and x_i = -\hat{c}_1(L_i). Let h(X_1,...,X_n) be a polynomial with integral coefficients in the ideal <e_1,...,e_n> generated by the elementary symmetric polynomials e_i. We give an effective algorithm for computing the arithmetic intersection h(x_1,..…
The first part of this paper is a survey on algebro-geometric aspects of sheaves of logarithmic vector fields of hyperplane arrangements. In the second part we prove that the relative de Rham cohomology (of degree two) of ADE-type adjoint quotient map is naturally isomorphic to the module of certain multiderivations. The isomorphism is obtained by the Gauss-Manin derivative of the Kostant-Kirillov form.
This paper studies the geometric and algebraic aspects of the moduli spaces of quivers of fence type. We first provide two quotient presentations of the quiver varieties and interpret their equivalence as a generalized Gelfand-MacPherson correspondence. Next, we introduce parabolic quivers and extend the above from the actions of reductive groups to the actions of parabolic subgroups. Interestingly, the above geometry finds its natural counterparts in the representation theory as the branching rules and transfer principle in the context of the reciprocity algebra. The last half of the paper es…
