Semistable reduction in characteristic zero for families of surfaces and threefolds (Q1961854)

The purpose of this paper is to extend the semistable reduction theorem of \textit{G. Kempf, F. Knudsen, D. Mumford} and \textit{B. Saint-Donat} [``Toroidal embeddings. I'', Lect. Notes Math. 339 (1973; Zbl 0271.14017)] for 1-parameter families of varieties \(f:X \rightarrow B\) over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, to the case when the base \(B\) has larger dimension. In the proof of the original theorem, the authors of the cited book have invented the theory of toroidal embeddings and reduced the geometrical problem to a combinatorial one. Again by using the theory of toroidal embeddings, the geometric problem of semistable reduction over a base of arbitrary dimension can be reduced to a combinatorial problem involving conical polyhedral complexes. The main result of this paper is the proof of the corresponding combinatorial (hence the geometric) semistable reduction problem in case when \(f\) has relative dimension \(\leq 3\) and the base \(B\) is of arbitrary dimension. The particular case for \(f\) of relative dimension \(1\) (i.e. for families of curves over a base of any dimension) has been proved earlier by \textit{A. J. de Jong} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 83, 51-93 (1996; Zbl 0916.14005)].