Chow quotients of toric varieties as moduli of stable log maps (Q2435294)

Let \(X\) be a projective normal toric variety \(X\) with defining torus \(T\) and \(\iota: T_0\to T\) a homomorphism from a subtorus of \(T\). By regarding \(\iota\) as an action, there is a natural map from the stack quotient \(T'=[T/T_0]\) to Kollár's Chow variety \(C(X)\) of cycles of dimension and homology class equal to the cycles defined by orbits of points of \(T\) (see [\textit{Rational curves on algebraic varieties}, Ergebnisse der Mathematik und ihrer Grenzgebiete (3) 32, Springer, Berlin, 1996; Zbl 0877.14012]). The \textit{Chow quotient} of \(X/\!\!/T_0\) is defined as the image of this map endowed with the reduced structure and in the case when \(\iota\) is an embedding, it coincides with the Chow quotient defined by \textit{M. M. Kapranov}, \textit{B. Sturmfels} and \textit{A. V. Zelevinsky} [Math. Ann. 290, No. 4, 643--655 (1991; Zbl 0762.14023)]. The aim of the present paper is to relate \(X/\!\!/T_0\) with the moduli space of stable log maps introduced by \textit{Q. Chen} [Ann. Math. (2) 180, No. 2, 455--521 (2014; Zbl 1311.14028)] and \textit{D. Abramovich} and \textit{Q. Chen} [Asian J. Math. 18, No. 3, 465--488 (2014; Zbl 1321.14025)], and independently by \textit{M. Gross} and \textit{B. Siebert} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 26, No. 2, 451--510 (2013; Zbl 1281.14044)]. By compactifying \(\iota\), one gets a map \(f_{\iota}:\mathbb P^1\to X\), which can be seen as a stable log map \(f_{\iota}:(\mathbb P^1,\mathcal M_{\mathbb P^1})\to (X, \mathcal M_X)\), where the log structure \(\mathcal M_{\mathbb P^1}\) of \(\mathbb P^1\) is given by the two markings \(\{0,\infty\}\) and the log structure \(\mathcal M_X\) of \(X\) is given by the boundary \(X\setminus T\). By fixing the curve class \(\beta_0\) of the stable map \(f_{\iota}\) and the contact orders \(c_0\) and \(c_{\infty}\) of \(0\) and \(\infty\) with respect to the toric boundary \(X\setminus T\), there is a proper moduli stack \(\mathfrak K_{\Gamma_0}(X)\) parametrizing stable log maps to \(X\) with discrete data \(\Gamma_0=(0,\beta_0,2,\{c_o,c_\infty\})\). The authors's main result is that the normalisation of \(X/\!\!/T_0\) is the coarse moduli space of \(\mathfrak K_{\Gamma_0}(X)\). All (non-empty) moduli spaces of two-pointed stable log maps are of the form \(\mathfrak K_{\Gamma_0}(X)\), which implies that these spaces are therefore always irreducible. Along the way of proving the main result of the paper, the authors also obtain an alternative modular description for \(\mathfrak K_{\Gamma_0}(X)\) in terms of the Kontsevich moduli pace of stable maps to \(X\) with genus \(0\), curve class \(\beta_0\) and two marked points, \(\mathfrak M_{0,2}(X,\beta_0)\); namely \(\mathfrak K_{\Gamma_0}\) is shown to be the normalisation of the closure of the image of \(T'\) on \(\mathfrak M_{0,2}(X,\beta_0)\). Other ingredients of the proof of the main theorem obtained by the authors are the log-smoothness of \(\mathfrak K_{\Gamma}(X)\) in the genus \(0\) case and the use of the relation between tropical curves and stable log maps to toric varieties to study the boundary of \(\mathfrak K_{\Gamma_0}(X)\).