Invariance of plurigenera (Q1283463)

The paper presents a proof of the following long conjectured result. Main theorem. Let \(\pi:X\to\Delta\) be a smooth projective family of compact complex manifolds parametrized by the open unit disc \(\Delta\), such that all the fibers \(X_t=\pi^{-1}(t)\), \(t\in\Delta\), are of general type. Then for every positive integer \(m\), the plurigenus \(\dim_\mathbb{C} \Gamma(X_t,m K_{X_t})\) is independent of \(t\), where \(K_{X_t}\) is the canonical line bundle of \(X_t\). Here the pojectivity of the family \(\pi\) means that there exists a positive line bundle on the total space \(X\) of the family, and a compact complex manifold \(Y\) of dimension \(n\) is said to be of general type if there exist a point \(P\in Y\) and elements \(s_0,s_1, \dots, s_n\in \Gamma(Y,mK_Y)\) such that \(s_0\) is nonzero at \(P\) and \(s_1/s_0, \dots, s_n/s_0\) form a local coordinate system of \(Y\) at \(P\). The Hermitian metrics of holomorphic line bundles are allowed to have singularities and may not be smooth.