The J-equation and the supercritical deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation (Q2049900)

The existence of canonical Kähler metrics in relation to the algebro-geometric stability notions has been a central problem in Kähler geometry and many deep results are known. The paper under review provides a breakthrough result in this area, by proving that the \(J\)-equation can be solved if an algebro-geometric stability condition, called the uniform \(J\)-stability, is satisfied, and similarly for the supercritical deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation. Given a compact Kähler manifold \(M\) and Kähler metrics \(\omega_0\) and \(\chi\), a Kähler metric \(\omega_{\varphi} := \omega_0 + \sqrt{-1} \partial \bar{\partial} \varphi >0\) is said to satisfy the \(J\)-equation if \[ \mathrm{tr}_{\omega_{\varphi}} \chi = c_0 \tag{1} \] for some constant \(c_0 >0\), which is a nonlinear PDE in \(\varphi\). This paper shows that the \(J\)-equation (1) can be solved if there exists a constant \(\epsilon_{1.1} >0\) such that \[ \int_V (c_0 - (n-p) \epsilon_{1.1} )\omega_0^p - p \chi \wedge \omega_0^p \ge 0 \tag{2} \] for all \(p\)-dimensional analytic subvarieties \(V\) with \(p=1, \dots , n\). This condition is called the uniform \(J\)-positivity in [\textit{J. Song}, ``Nakai-Moishezon criterions for complex Hessian equations'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2012.07956}]. The \(J\)-stability is a condition defined in terms of the positivity of an algebro-geometric invariant associated to certain flat families of algebraic varieties, defined by \textit{M. Lejmi} and \textit{G. Székelyhidi} [Adv. Math. 274, 404--431 (2015; Zbl 1370.53051)], when \(M\) is a smooth projective variety. The uniform \(J\)-stability further assumes that the invariant is uniformly bounded below by a certain norm-like invariant. Note that these notions can be generalised to compact Kähler manifolds [\textit{R. Dervan} and \textit{J. Ross}, Math. Res. Lett. 24, No. 3, 689--739 (2017; Zbl 1390.32021)]. It is well known that the solution to (1) implies the uniform \(J\)-stability [Dervan and Ross, loc. cit.], which in turn implies the uniform \(J\)-positivity [Lejmi and Székelyhidi, loc. cit.] (see also Remark 1.3 of the paper under review). Thus, the following three conditions (i) the existence of a solution to the \(J\)-equation, (ii) the uniform \(J\)-stability, (iii) the uniform \(J\)-positivity, are all equivalent once we know that the uniform \(J\)-positivity (2) implies the existence of a solution to (1), which is the main result of this paper. The proof of this result is technical and involves many new ideas; the reader is referred to Section 1 of the paper for the outline of the proof. The author starts by proving that the equation \[ \mathrm{tr}_{\omega_{\varphi}} \chi + f \frac{\chi^n}{\omega^n_{\varphi}} = c \tag{3} \] can be solved for a smooth function \(f\) and a constant \(c>0\) satisfying some conditions, under the hypothesis that \[ c \omega_0^{n-1} - (n-1) \chi \wedge \omega_0^{n-2} > 0 \tag{4} \] holds. This is proved by using the continuity method twice in Section 2 of the paper. The proof that the uniform \(J\)-positivity implies (1) is also given by a continuity method. The solvability of (3) under the hypothesis (4), together with an appropriate definition of the closure of Kähler metrics satisfying (4) and a technical argument that is analogous to the one given in [\textit{J.-P. Demailly} and \textit{M. Paun}, Ann. Math. (2) 159, No. 3, 1247--1274 (2004; Zbl 1064.32019)], implies the existence of a current which may be regarded as a weak solution at the limit of the continuity path; the details are given in Section 3. The author finally uses an induction on the dimension of the manifold and a gluing construction to get a smooth Kähler metric satisfying (4), hence (3), in Section 4. The special case \(f=0\) is the \(J\)-equation (1). The author proves similar results for the supercritical deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation in Section 5. Some improvements of the above theorems have been recently obtained. \textit{V. V. Datar} and \textit{V. P. Pingali} [``A numerical criterion for generalised Monge-Ampère equations on projective manifolds'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2006.01530}] proved that we may set \(\epsilon_{1.1}\) in (2) to be zero to get the solution to \(J\)-equation when \(M\) is a smooth projective variety, which is a condition called the \(J\)-positivity in [Song, loc. cit.]. The projective assumption was later removed by Song [loc. cit.]. A similar result for the supercritical deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation was obtained by \textit{J. Chu} et al. [``A Nakai-Moishezon type criterion for supercritical deformed Hermitian-Yang-Mills equation'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2105.10725}] when \(M\) is projective. Given these results it may be tempting to speculate that the uniform \(J\)-stability might be replaced by the \(J\)-stability, but this was shown to be not true by \textit{M. Hattori} [``A decomposition formula for \(J\)-stability and its applications'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2103.04603}], who provided an example that is \(J\)-stable but not uniformly \(J\)-stable.