Positivity of relative canonical bundles and applications (Q1758210)

This paper in algebraic geometry, dedicated to the memory of Eckart Vieweg, uses methods of differential geometry (e.g., Kähler-Einstein metrics) and geometric analysis (e.g., potential theory as in Hodge theory, complex Monge-Ampère equations, and deformation theory) in the manner of the schools of Siu and Demailly to analyze the moduli space \({\mathcal M}_{\mathrm{can}}\) of canonically polarized varieties and to show that it is quasi-projective. It has eleven sections and features many theorems, including the following Main Theorem. Main Theorem. Let \({\mathcal X}\to S\) be a holomorphic family of canonically polarized, compact, complex manifolds, which is nowhere infinitesimally trivial. Then the curvature of the hermitian metric on the relative canonical bundle \({\mathcal K}_{{\mathcal X}/S}\) that is induced by the Kähler-Einstein metrics on the fibers is strictly positive. A large part of this long paper is devoted to differential geometric tensorial calculations to compute explicitly the curvature tensor of an appropriate direct image.