Orbit spaces of small tori (Q1412961)

Suppose \(T\cong({\mathbb C}^*)^k\) acts diagonally on \({\mathbb C}^n\), and \(X\subseteq{\mathbb C}^n\) is a \(({\mathbb C}^*)^n\)-invariant open subset with a geometric quotient \(X\to X/T\). It is known that in general \(X/T\) need not be quasi-projective unless \(k=1\) and that, even if \(X/T\) is complete and \(T\) acts freely, \(X/T\) need not be projective unless \(k\leq 3\). Here, assuming only that \(X/T\) is complete (so \(T\) may not act freely), the authors show that \(X/T\) is projective for \(r=2\) but need not be projective for \(r=3\). If \(X\) is quasi-affine, one can have \(\dim X=5\) and \(k=3\) and \(X/T\) complete but not projective, or \(\dim X=5\) and \(k=1\) and \(X/T\) not quasi-projective. The authors give examples of both of these. In the latter case, the quotient has a striking and (to the reviewer) suprising property: It is a toric variety and it is divisorial (that is, it has enough effective invariant Cartier divisors), but it cannot be embedded in any separated smooth toric variety.