Positivity of cotangent bundles (Q846229)

Let \(X\) be a complex projective manifold. While there has been a lot of research on the positivity of the canonical bundle \(K_X\), relatively few things are known about the positivity of the cotangent bundle \(\Omega_X\). If \(\Omega_X\) is ample this gives important restrictions on the geometry of \(X\): all the subvarieties of \(X\) are of general type, moreover \(X\) is hyperbolic, i.e. does not admit a holomorphic non-constant map \(\mathbb C \rightarrow X\). Although manifolds with ample cotangent bundle are expected to be reasonably abundant, it is quite hard to check this property in general. \textit{O. Debarre} [Compos. Math. 141, No. 6, 1445--1459 (2005; Zbl 1086.14038)] has shown that a general complete intersection of sufficiently ample line bundles in an abelian variety has ample cotangent bundle and one expects the same property for general complete intersections of high degree in \(\mathbb P^n\). In a different direction [\textit{M. Schneider}, Complex analysis and algebraic geometry, Proc. Conf., Göttingen 1985, Lect. Notes Math. 1194, 150--157 (1986; Zbl 0592.14016)] proved that if a projective surface \(S\) admits a smooth fibration such that the Kodaira-Spencer map is injective in every point, then \(\Omega_S\) is ample. \newline The aim of the paper under review is to give a weak generalization of Schneider's result to towers of smooth fibrations by curves of general type. More precisely let \(f_i:X^i \rightarrow X^{i-1}\) be a tower of fibrations where each \(X^i\) is a projective manifold of dimension \(i\) and each \(f_i\) is smooth with maximal variation, i.e. the Kodaira-Spencer map has maximal rank at a general point. Then \(\Omega_{X^n}\) is nef and big. Moreover \(\Omega_X\) is quasi-ample on some open set \(U\), i.e. for every smooth curve \(C \rightarrow X\) that meets \(U\), the restriction to \(C\) is ample. Generalizing the classical construction due to Kodaira, the author constructs examples of varieties satisfying the conditions of the main theorem. Using sheaves of one-forms with logarithmic poles along a divisor, she also proves a positivity result when the fibrations are not smooth.