Pluripotential Monge-Ampère flows in big cohomology classes (Q2067065)

On a compact Kähler manifold \(X\) of dimension \(n\), one can consider the following complex Monge-Ampère flow (CMAF) \[ dt \wedge (\omega_t+dd^c \varphi_t)^n = e^{\overset{\cdot}{\varphi_t}+F(t,\cdot, \varphi_t)} fdV\wedge dt \]where \(t\in [0,T)\) for some time \(T>0\), \(dV\) is a smooth volume form, \(0\le f\in L^p(dV)\) for some \(p>1\), \((\omega_t)_{t\in [0,T)}\) is a smooth family of closed \((1,1)\)-forms such that (among other things) \([\omega_t] \in H^{1,1}(X,\mathbb R)\) is a big cohomology class, \(\varphi_t \in \mathrm{PSH}(X,\omega_t)\) and \(F\) is a continuous function with suitable regularity, monotonicity and convexity properties. The equation (CMAF) has to be understood in the sense of positive currents. When the class \([\omega_t]\) is Kähler, this type of flow arises naturally from the Kähler-Ricci flow and has been studied intensively. Allowing degeneracy for the background cohomology class \([\omega_t]\) is partly motivated by the desire to work on singular varieties arising from the Minimal Model Program. The novelty in this paper is that the cohomology class \([\omega_t]\) is not required to be semipositive or even nef, see e.g. [\textit{V. Guedj} et al., Geom. Topol. 24, No. 3, 1225--1296 (2020; Zbl 1458.32035)]. A difficulty that naturally appears in this level of generality is that the functions \(\varphi_t\) need not be bounded anymore and the flow cannot be obtained as limit of flows in Kähler classes, see [\textit{S. Boucksom} et al., Acta Math. 205, No. 2, 199--262 (2010; Zbl 1213.32025)] for a full account of the elliptic counterpart. The main result of the paper is that (CMAF) admits a solution \((\varphi_t)\) emerging from any \(\omega_0\)-psh function \(\varphi_0\) with minimal singularities. Moreover, \(\varphi_t\) can be constructed as the envelope of all subsolutions and it is locally uniformly Lipschitz and locally uniformly semi-concave in the time variable \(t\). Moreover, under the additional assumption that \(\overset{\cdot}{\omega_t} \le A \omega_t\) for some \(A>0\) and all times \(t\in [0,T)\), then \(\varphi_t\) has minimal singularities, and is the unique solution of (CMAF) with these properties. Two interestings results are derived from the main theorem. First, the author gives a new proof of the main result of [\textit{T. D. Tô}, Int. Math. Res. Not. 2021, No. 8, 6373--6404 (2021; Zbl 1478.32055)] stating that on a projective manifold of general type, the renormalized Kähler-Ricci flow (starting from any Kähler metric) converges to the singular Kähler-Einstein metric constructed by \textit{P. Eyssidieux} et al. [J. Am. Math. Soc. 22, No. 3, 607--639 (2009; Zbl 1215.32017)], when \(t\to +\infty\). Similarly, on a stable variety \(X\) (i.e., \(X\) has semi- log canonical singularities and is canonically polarized), the renormalized Kähler-Ricci flow (starting from any Kähler metric) converges to the singular Kähler-Einstein metric constructed by \textit{R. J. Berman} and the reviewer [Geom. Funct. Anal. 24, No. 6, 1683--1730 (2014; Zbl 1319.32019)], when \(t\to +\infty\).