On a conjecture of Tian (Q1706088)

Let \(X\) be a complex projective manifold, and let \(L\) be an ample line bundle on \(X\). Tian's \(\alpha\)-invariant \[ \alpha(X, L) = \text{sup} \{ \lambda \in \mathbb Q \;| \;(X, \lambda D) \;\text{is log-canonical for every} \;D \geq 0, \;D \sim_{\mathbb Q} L \} \] plays an important role for the existence of special metrics on \(X\), but is very difficult to compute. If the line bundle \(L\) is very ample, Tian conjectured that \(\alpha(X, L)= \alpha_1(X, L)\) where \[ \alpha_1(X, L) = \text{sup} \{ \lambda \in \mathbb Q \;| \;(X, \lambda D) \;\text{is log-canonical for every} \;D \in | L | \}. \] In this paper, the authors discuss this conjecture in the case where \(X \subset \mathbb P^3\) is a smooth hypersurface of degree \(d\). The cases \(d \leq 3\) are known by arguments from toric geometric and work of \textit{I. Cheltsov} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 18, No. 4, 1118--1144 (2008; Zbl 1161.14030)]. The first main result of this paper is that Tian's conjecture also holds for \(d=4\). For the proof, the authors carry out a case-by-case analysis of the possible singularities. The second main result is that Tian's conjecture fails for \(d \geq 6\), for \(d \geq 8\) it is even false for a general smooth hypersurface. In fact a Riemann-Roch computation on a blow-up of the surface in a point allows to construct very singular divisors \(D \in |nL|\) for \(n \gg 1\).