Seshadri constants and Okounkov bodies revisited (Q2196351)

In the paper under review the authors revisited a linkage between Seshadri constants and Okounkov bodies for projective varieties defined over fields of arbitrary characteristic. Let \(f : Y \rightarrow X\) be a birational morphism between smooth projective varieties of dimension \(n\) and \(V_{\bullet}\) be a graded linear series associated with a divisor \(D\) on \(X\). Fix a complete admissible flag on \(Y_{\bullet}\). With this data one can associate a convex set \[\triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(f^{*}(V_{\bullet}))\subset \mathbb{R}^{n}_{\geq 0}.\] When \(V_{\bullet}\) is the complete graded linear series of \(D\), we put \(\triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(f^{*}(D)) = \triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(f^{*}(V_{\bullet}))\). When \(f\) is the identity, then we say that \(\triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(V_{\bullet})\) is the Okounkov body of \(V_{\bullet}\). The other case is when \(f\) is the blowing up of \(X\) at a point \(x \in X\) and \(Y_{\bullet}\) is an infinitesimal complete admissible flag (i.e. the \(n-1\) elements of the flag are contained in the exceptional divisor), and in this case we say \(\triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(f^{*}V_{\bullet})\) is the infinitesimal Okounkov body of \(V_{\bullet}\) over \(x \in X\). The first part of the paper is devoted to the ampleness characterization of divisors in the context of the properties of Okounkov bodies, mostly in the spirit of A. Küronya and V. Lozovanu works. To this end, let \(e_{1}, ...,e_{n}\) be the standard basis vector for \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) and \(\mathbf{0}\) be the origin of \(\mathbb{R}^{N}\). For \(\xi \geq 0\), set \[\diamondsuit^{n}_{\xi} := \text{ closed covnex hull } ( \mathbf{0}, \xi e_{1}, ..., \xi e_{n}),\] \[\bar{\diamondsuit}_{\xi}^{n} := \text{ closed covnex hull } (\mathbf{0}, \xi e_{1}, \xi(e_{1}+e_{2}), ..., \xi(e_{1} + e_{n})).\] We call \(\diamondsuit_{\xi}^{n}\) the standard simplex and \(\bar{\diamondsuit}_{\xi}^{n}\) the inverted standard simplex of size \(\xi\). Theorem A. Let \(X\) be a smooth projective variety of dimension \(n\) over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic and \(D\) be a big \(\mathbb{R}\)-divisor. Then the following conditions are equivalent: i) \(D\) is ample; ii) For every point \(x \in X\) there is an admissible flag \(Y_{\bullet}\) centered at \(x\) such that \(\triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(D)\) contains a non-trivial standard simplex in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}_{\geq 0}.\) iii) For every point \(x\in X\) there is an infinitesimal admissible flag \(Y_{\bullet}\) over \(x\) such that \(\triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(f^{*}(D))\) contains a non-trivial inverted standard simplex in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}_{\geq 0}\). The second result is devoted to the Seshadri constant \(\varepsilon(V_{\bullet};x)\) of a graded linear series \(V_{\bullet}\) at a point \(x\). We define two constants \[\xi (V_{\bullet};x) :=\sup_{Y_{\bullet}} \{ \xi : \diamondsuit_{\xi}^{n} \subseteq \triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(V_{\bullet}) \};\] \[\bar{\xi }(V_{\bullet};x) =\sup_{Y_{\bullet}} \{ \xi : \bar{\diamondsuit}_{\xi}^{n} \subseteq \triangle_{Y_{\bullet}}(f^{*}(V_{\bullet})),\] where in the first case the supremum is taken over all complete admissible flags centered at \(x\), and in the second case the supremum is taken over all infinitesimal flags over \(x\). Theorem B. Let \(X\) be a smooth projective variety \(x \in X\) be a point, and \(V_{\bullet}\) be a graded linear series associated with a divisor \(D\) on \(X\). Then \[\varepsilon(V_{\bullet};x) = \bar{\xi}(V_{\bullet};x) \geq \xi(V_{\bullet};x)\] in the following case: (i) \(\mathrm{char}(\mathbb{k}) \geq 0\), \(V_{\bullet}\) is complete, and \(D\) is big and nef. (ii) \(\mathrm{char}(\mathbb{k}) \geq 0\), \(V_{\bullet}\) is complete, and \(x \not\in \mathbb{B}_{+}(D)\). (iii) \(\mathrm{char}(\mathbb{k}) = 0\), \(V_{\bullet}\) is complete. (iv) \(\mathrm{char}(\mathbb{k}) = 0\), \(V_{\bullet}\) is birational, and \(x \in X\) is very general. Let now \(\mathcal{F}_{x}\) is the multiplicative filtration determined by the geometric valuation \(\mathrm{ord}_{x}\) for a point \(x\in X\) as \[\mathcal{F}_{x}^{t} V_{m}:= \{s \in V_{m} \, : \, \mathrm{ord}_{x}(s) \geq t\}.\] Now we fix an admissible flag \(Y_{\bullet}\) on \(Y\) centered at \(x\). With this data, one can associate the following convex subset \[\bar{\triangle}_{Y_{\bullet}}(f^{*}V_{\bullet},\mathcal{F}_{x}) \subseteq \mathbb{R}^{n+1}_{\geq 0}\] called the filtred Okounkov body. Then one can define the integrated volume function as \[\check{\phi}_{x}(V_{\bullet}, \mathcal{F}_{x},t):= \int_{u=0}^{t}\mathrm{vol}_{\mathbb{R}^{n}} (\bar{\triangle}_{Y_{\bullet}}(f^{*}V_{\bullet},\mathcal{F}_{x})_{x_{n+1}=u})du.\] As the first step, the authors show that the derivative \(\check{\phi}_{x}'(V_{\bullet}, \mathcal{F}_{x},t)\) always exists. This allows to prove the following result. Theorem C. Let \(X\) be a smooth projective variety of dimension \(n\). Let \(x \in X\) be a point and \(V_{\bullet}\) be a graded linear series associated to a divisor \(D\) on \(X\). Then we have \[\varepsilon(V_{\bullet};x) =\mathrm{inf} \bigg\{ t \geq 0 \, : \, \check{\phi}_{x}'(V_{\bullet}, \mathcal{F}_{x},0) - \check{\phi}_{x}'(V_{\bullet}, \mathcal{F}_{x},t) < \frac{t^{n}}{n!}\bigg\}\] in the four cases considered in Theorem B.