Seshadri constants over fields of characteristic zero (Q2683682)

In the paper under review, the authors study the Seshadri constants on smooth projective varieties of a characteristic zero field \(k\) and nef line bundles \(\mathcal{L}\) on \(X\) defined over \(k\). Let us recall the following fundamental definition. Definition. Let \(X\) be a smooth projective variety over a field \(k\) and let \(x \in X\) be a closed point. Let \(\pi : \tilde{X} \rightarrow X\) be the blow-up of \(X\) at \(x\) with the exceptional divisor \(E\) and let \(\mathcal{L}\) be a nef line bundle on \(X\). One defines the Seshadri constant at \(x\), denoted here by \(\varepsilon(X,\mathcal{L},x)\), as \[ \varepsilon(X,\mathcal{L},x):=\sup\{\varepsilon\geq 0:\pi^{*}\mathcal{L} - \varepsilon \cdot E \text{ is nef on }\tilde{X}\}. \] The Seshadri constant at the point \(x\) is defined as \[ \varepsilon(X,x):=\inf_{\mathcal{L}\text{ is ample}} \varepsilon(X,\mathcal{L},x) \] and the global Seshadri constant of \(X\) is defined as \[ \varepsilon(X):=\inf_{x \in X}\varepsilon(X,x). \] The first main result in the paper under review tells us that if \(X\) is a smooth projective variety defined over \(k\), then the Seshadri constant at a rational point can be computed over curves defined over \(k\) passing through that point (which means that this can be done using the standard intersection theoretical definition of the Seshadri constant). Among many interesting results devoted to Seshadri constants for vector bundles, or the behaviour of these constants over finite etale covers, the authors show that following result that can be considered as their main contribution. Main Theorem. Let \(X\) be a smooth projective surface defined over a field \(k\). Assume furthermore that for every positive integer \(n\) there is a closed point \(x_{n} \in X\) such that \([k(x_{n}) : k] > n\). In other words, we assume that the degrees of extensions \(k(x)\) of closed points \(x \in X\) are unbounded. The the global Seshadri constant of \(X\) is zero.