Sanya lectures: geometry of spherical varieties (Q1705309)

These are the expanded notes from a series lectures given by the author. The main aspects of the geometry of spherical varieties over algebraically closed fields are reviewed, and the exposition is enriched with several proofs and examples. Fix a connected reductive group \(G\) and a Borel subgroup \(B \subset G\). An algebraic \(G\)-variety is spherical if it is normal and it possesses an open \(B\)-orbit. Among many other well-known examples, spherical varieties include rational projective homogeneous spaces, toric varieties and symmetric spaces: it is natural to try to extend as much as possible classical geometric results known for the above three classes of spherical varieties to the general context. The first section of the paper is devoted to the study of the \(B\)-orbit closures in spherical varieties, in arbitrary characteristic: these are the natural generalizations of the Schubert varieties. The notions of complexity and rank are reviewed, and it is shown that spherical varieties contain only finitely many \(B\)-orbits. The poset of the \(B\)-orbit closures of a spherical variety is studied, and criteria for the \(B\)-orbit closures to be normal are given. Starting from the second section, the characteristic of the base field is assumed to be zero. The second section is devoted to study of the local structure of a spherical variety, with emphasis on the case of toroidal varieties: these are the spherical varieties whose local structure reduces to that of a toric variety. The third section studies the Picard group and the group of Weil divisors of a spherical variety. The globally generated and ample divisors are identified, and the Picard group is described via convex geometry, generalizing the case of toric varieties. The fourth section concerns \(B\)-stable curves: the duality between curves and divisors is studied, and linear and numerical equivalences between \(B\)-stable curves are described. Finally, the last section is dedicated to the canonical divisors of a spherical variety, and an explicit \(B\)-stable canonical divisor is described.