Families of varieties of general type over compact bases (Q2427564)

Let \(f : X \rightarrow Y\) be a family of canonically polarised complex manifolds over a smooth base, i.e. a smooth morphism between quasi-projective complex manifolds such that the fibres are projective manifolds with ample canonical bundle. The family induces a natural map from the base \(Y\) to some moduli space (of canonically polarised manifolds with fixed Hilbert polynomial) and we define the variation of the family \(f\) as the dimension of the image of this map. If the variation is maximal, i.e. equal to the dimension of \(Y\), a conjecture of Viehweg claims that the manifold \(Y\) is of log-general type. In the paper under review the authors establish this conjecture under the additional hypothesis that \(Y\) is projective and that the minimal model program holds. More precisely suppose that the following two conjectures hold. 1. A smooth projective variety is uniruled if and only if its Kodaira dimension is \(-\infty\). 2. Every smooth projective variety with Kodaira dimension zero is birational to a minimal model such that some multiple of the canonical divisor is trivial. Let now \(Y\) be a projective manifold and \(f : X \rightarrow Y\) a family of canonically polarised complex manifolds over \(Y\). Then if \(Y\) is uniruled, the variation is not maximal. If \(Y\) is not uniruled, the variation of \(f\) is less or equal than the Kodaira dimension of \(Y\). Since the two mentioned conjectures are proven in dimension at most three, Viehweg's conjecture holds if \(Y\) is projective of dimension at most three. The main tools of the surprisingly short proof are the minimal model program and the existence of an invertible subsheaf in some symmetric power of the cotangent bundle of \(Y\) that represents the variation of \(f\) (cf. Thm.1.4.i in [\textit{E. Viehweg} and \textit{K. Zuo}, Complex geometry. Berlin: Springer. 279--328 (2002; Zbl 1006.14004)]). Note also that the authors proved Viehweg's conjecture for quasi-projective surfaces in an earlier paper [Invent. Math. 172, No. 3, 657--682 (2008; Zbl 1140.14031)].