Instability of truncated symmetric powers of sheaves (Q2438445)

For a torsion free sheaf \(E\) on a smooth projective variety \(X\) of dimension \(n\) over an algebraically closed field of characteristic \(p>0\) , let \(\mu(E)\) denote the slope of \(E\) with respect to a fixed ample divisor \(H\) on \(X\). There is a unique filtration \(0 = E_0 \subset \cdots \subset E_r=E\) such that the successive quotients are semistable (i.e., \(H\)-semistable) and \(\mu(E_i/E_{i-1}) > \mu(E_{i+1}/E_i), \forall i>0\). Let \(\mu_{\max}(E)= \mu(E_1), \mu_{\min}(E) =\mu(E/E_{r-1})\). The instability of \(E\) is defined as the difference \(I(E)= \mu_{\max}(E) - \mu_{\min}(E)\) and \(I(E)=0\) if and only if \(E\) is semistable. Let \(F_X\) denote the absolute Frobenius on \(X\) and \(\Omega_X\) the cotangent sheaf of \(X\). In this paper, the authors study the instability \(I(T^l(E))\) of truncated symmetric powers of \(E\) and show that it has an upper bound in terms of \(I(E), I(\Omega_X)\) and \(L_{\max}(\Omega_X)= \lim_{m \to \infty} \;\mu_{\max}(F_X^{m *} \Omega_X)/ p^m\). As an application, they get an upper bound for \(I(F_{X*} E)\) and sufficient conditions for \(F_{X*} E\) to be semistable if \(\mu(\Omega_X)\geq 0\). In particular, they show that if \(\mu(\Omega_X) \geq 0, \Omega_X\) and \(E\) are strongly semistable, then \(F_{X*}(E)\) is semistable. Let \(B^i_X\) (respectively \(Z^i_X\)) denote the sheaves of exact (respectively closed) differential \(i\)-forms on \(X\). The authors prove the following results for them. (1) If \(n \geq 3\) and \(\mu(\Omega_X) >0\), then \(Z^i_X, 1\leq i<\frac{n}{2}\) are never slope semistable. (2) If \(\mu(\Omega_X)=0\) and \(\Omega_X\) is semistable, then \(B^i_X\) and \(Z^i_X\) are strongly semistable for \(1\leq i\leq n\). (3) If \(T^l(\Omega_X), 0 \leq l \leq n(p-1),\) are semistable then for \(\mu(\Omega_X)=0\), \(B^n_X\) is strongly semistable and for \(\mu(\Omega_X) >0\), it is stable. For \(n=2\), if \(\mu(\Omega_X)>0\) and \(\Omega_X\) is semistable, then \(Z^1_X\) is semistable if \(p=3\) and stable if \(p>3\) [\textit{X. Sun}, J. Algebra 324, No. 7, 1471--1482 (2010; Zbl 1255.14035)].