Mustafin varieties (Q657839)

This paper introduces a novel combinatorial theory of degenerations of projective spaces. A \textit{Mustafin variety} (previously known as \textit{Deligne scheme} and investigated by \textit{G. A. Mustafin} [Math. USSR, Sb. 34, 187--214 (1978); translation from Mat. Sb., n. Ser. 105(147), 207--237 (1978; Zbl 0411.14006)] in order to generalize to higher dimension \textit{D. Mumford}'s seminal work [Compos. Mathe. 24, 129--174 (1972; Zbl 0228.14011)] on uniformization of curves, and discussed later on by \textit{D. Cartwright} and \textit{B. Sturmfels} [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2010, No. 9, 1741--1771 (2010; Zbl 1213.14010)], \textit{G. Faltings} [in: Proceedings of the 3rd Texel conference, Texel Island, Netherlands, April 1999. Basel: Birkhäuser. Prog. Math. 195, 157--184 (2001; Zbl 1028.14002)] and \textit{S. Keel} and \textit{J. Tevelev} [Duke Math. J. 134, 259--311 (2006; Zbl 1107.14026)] is a degeneration of projective space induced by a point configuration in a Bruhat-Tits building. The special fiber is reduced and Cohen-Macaulay, and its irreducible components form interesting combinatorial patterns. For configurations that lie in one apartment, these patterns are regular mixed subdivisions of scaled simplices, and the Mustafin variety is a twisted Veronese variety built from such a subdivision. This connects its study to tropical and toric geometry. For general configurations, the irreducible components of the special fiber are rational varieties, and any blow-up of projective space along a linear subspace arrangement can arise. In the paper, a detailed study of Mustafin varieties is undertaken for configurations in the Bruhat-Tits tree of \(\mathrm{PGL}(2)\) and in the two-dimensional building of \(\mathrm{PGL}(3)\). The latter yields the classification of Mustafin triangles into 38 combinatorial types.