Analyticity of the closures of some Hodge theoretic subspaces (Q764642)

Assume there are \(n\) admissible polarized variations of mixed Hodge structures given over a smooth open dense subset \(S^*\) of an analytic space \(S\). The authors prove that the closure \(\overline{Z^*}\) in \(S\) of the locus \(Z^*\) where the above variations of mixed Hodge structures agree (up to an action of a discrete group) is an analytic subset of \(S\). In particular, if \(S\) is a projective compactification of the quasi-projective variety \(S^*\), then \(\overline{Z^*}\) is projective. Hence in this situation \(Z^*\) is a closed algebraic subset of \(S^*\), a surprising statement given the analytic definition of the variations of mixed Hodge structures. As a consequence the authors show that the zero loci of admissible normal functions over an algebraic base space is algebraic. This statement has been shown recently also by \textit{P. Brosnan} and \textit{G. Pearlstein} [``On the algebraicity of the zero locus of an admissible normal function'', \url{arXiv:0910.0628}] and in the weight \(-1\) case by \textit{C. Schnell} [Invent. Math. 188, No. 1, 1--81 (2012; Zbl 1299.14009)]. The method of the proof is to examine the induced maps to the valuatively toroidal partial compactification of the period domain introduced by the same authors [``Classifying spaces of degenerating mixed Hodge structures, III: Spaces of nilpotent orbits'', \url{arXiv:1011.4353}].