Seshadri constants and the generation of jets (Q1030705)

Suppose that \(X\) is a smooth projective variety, \(L\) is an ample line bundle on \(X\) and \(x \in X\) is a closed point. The {\textit{Seshadri constant of \(L\) at \(x\)}} is the real number \(\varepsilon(L, x) := \text{inf}_{C} {L \cdot C \over \text{mult}_x C}\). On the other hand, for \(k > 0\), if we set \(s(kL, x)\) to be the maximal integer \(s\) such that \(|kL|\) generates the \(s\)-jets at \(x\), then \[ \varepsilon(L, x) = \lim_{k \to \infty} {s(kL, x) \over k}. \] Thus it is natural to try to understand the Seshardri constants by understanding the numbers \(s(kL, x)\) for \(k \gg 0\). As the authors point out, this has not been the standard approach to computing Seshardri constants. Towards this goal, in the case that \(X\) is Fano (ie, \(-K_X\) is ample) the authors prove that \(s(k(-K_X), x)\) is bounded between \(\lfloor (k+1)\varepsilon(-K_X, x) - (n + 1)\rfloor\) and \(\lfloor k \varepsilon(-K_X, x) \rfloor\) (the lower bound being the new result of this paper -- in fact, even stronger bounds are proven). Using this bound, the authors obtain the following new characterization of projective space. Theorem 2. Let \(X\) be a smooth Fano variety of dimension \(n\) such that there exists \(x \in X\) with \(\varepsilon(-K_X, x) = n+1\), then \(X = \mathbb{P}^n\). If instead of assuming that \(X\) is Fano, one assumes that \(K_X = 0\), then additional bounds can be obtained for \(s(kL, x)\) for any ample line bundle \(L\). These are explored in section 2 of the paper and many interesting examples and computations are also performed in this context.