Positivity of direct images of positively curved volume forms (Q463979)

In the article under review, the authors are concerned with the general problem of positivity of the curvature of volume forms under the direct image by a holomorphic submersion. The first situation they consider is the following: given \(X\) a complex manifold, \(D\) a domain in \(\mathbb{C}^n\), \(dV\) a positively curved volume form on \(D\times X\) and \(p:D\times X\rightarrow D\) the projection on the first factor, are there natural conditions under which the direct image \(p_*dV\) is positively curved as well? The first result of the paper states that this is indeed the case if \(X\) is holomorphically convex and acted on by a compact Lie group \(K\) in such a way that \(\mathcal{O}(X)^K=\mathbb{C}\) and \(dV\) is \(K\)-invariant. When \(X\) is a Stein manifold and \(K\) is a compact Lie group acting on it, the categorical quotient \(X//K\) exists as a Stein space [\textit{D. M. Snow}, Math. Ann. 259, 79--97 (1982; Zbl 0509.32021)], and the natural projection \(\pi:X\rightarrow X//K\) is a proper submersion on a Zariski open set \(U\) of \(X//K\). If \(dV\) is a \(K\)-invariant positively curved volume form on \(X\), it is shown that \(\pi_*(dV)\) is a well-defined positively curved volume form on \(U\) (which can be extended to the whole \(X//K\) if the latter is known to be smooth). The end of the paper deals with the case of non compact group actions to recover the positivity of direct images in the case of tube domains as considered first in [\textit{C. O. Kiselman}, Invent. Math. 49, 137--148 (1978; Zbl 0378.32010)] and generalized in [\textit{B. Berndtsson}, Math. Ann. 312, No. 4, 785--792 (1998; Zbl 0938.32021)].