Lengths of periods and Seshadri constants of abelian varieties (Q1815685)

Let \((A,\Theta)\) be a principally polarized abelian variety of dimension \(g\). The Seshadri constant \(\varepsilon(A,\Theta)\) measures the local positivity of the theta divisor \(\Theta\). Its properties were extensively studied by \textit{L. Ein, O. Küchle} and \textit{R. Lazarsfeld} [J. Differ. Geom. 42, No. 2, 193-219 (1995; Zbl 0866.14004)]. \textit{P. Buser} and \textit{P. Sarnak} [Invent. Math. 117, No. 1, 27-56 (1994; Zbl 0814.14033)] introduced a metric invariant \(m(A,\Theta)\) as follows: The polarization \(\Theta\) defines a positive definite quadratic form on the lattice \(\Lambda=H_1(A,\mathbb{Z})\) and \(m(A,\Theta)\) is defined to be its minimum value on \(\Lambda -\{0\}\). The main result of the paper is the following surprising connection of both constants. It is shown that \[ \varepsilon (A,\Theta)\geq\frac{\pi}{4} m(A,\Theta). \] Apart from other consequences this yields for example that for a general principally polarized abelian variety \[ \varepsilon(A,\Theta)\geq \frac{\root g \of{2g!}}{4}\approx \frac{g}{4e}. \]