A relative Hilbert-Mumford criterion (Q889628)

The object of this paper is to generalise the Hilbert-Mumford criterion to a relative situation. In fact, let \(k\) be an arbitrary field, \(A\) a noetherian \(k\)-algebra and \(f:X\to \text{Spec} A\) a projective morphism which is equivariant with respect to the action of a linearly reductive group \(G\). For \(\mathcal{L}\) an ample \(G\)-linearized invertible sheaf on \(X\) and \(p:\text{Spec}\Omega\to X\) a geometric point, stability is defined exactly as in the work of Mumford. Now suppose that \(\lambda:\mathbb{G}_{m,K}\to G_K\) is a \(1\)-parameter subgroup (\(1\)-PS) over some field extension \(K\) of \(\Omega\). If the morphism \(\mathbb{G}_{m,K}\to X_K\) defined by the action of \(\mathbb{G}_m\) on \(p\) extends to \(\mathbb{A}^1_K\to X_K\), it defines a unique \(K\)-valued limit point \(p_0=\lim_{t\rightarrow0}\lambda(t).p\). We define \(\mu^{\mathcal{L}}(\lambda,p)\) to be the negative of the \(\mathbb{G}_{m,K}\)-weight on the fibre \(\mathcal{L}(p_0)\) if \(p_0\) exists and \(\infty\) otherwise. Then (Theorem 3.3) \(p\) is stable ( semistable) if and only if \(\mu^{\mathcal{L}}(\lambda,p)>0 (\geq0)\) for every \(1\)-PS \(\lambda:\mathbb{G}_{m,K}\to G_K\) and every field extension \(K\) of \(\Omega\). If \(\text{Spec} A\) is of finite type over \(k\), it is sufficient to check the criterion for \(K=\Omega\). The proof follows that of Mumford for the case where \(X\) is projective. In the relative case considered here, one can embed \(X\) equivariantly into a projective fibre space \(\mathbb{P}(V)\to\text{Spec} A\). However, there is a problem in that there is no diagonalisation result for \(\mathbb{G}_m\)-actions on \(\mathbb{P}(V)\) and the authors have to find a substitute for this. Section 2 contains the basic definitions, a summary of results of Mumford and the extension, where necessary, of these to the new situation. The numerical criterion is stated in Section 3 and proved in Section 5 following the establishment of a geometric criterion in Section 4. The paper concludes with some examples in Section 6.