Wonderful resolutions and categorical crepant resolutions of singularities (Q890765)

Let \(X\) be a Gorenstein variety and \(\omega_X\) its dualizing sheaf. A resolution of singularities \(\pi: Y \to X\) is said to be \textit{crepant} if \(\pi^* \omega_X=\omega_Y\). It is well-known that a crepant resolution is \textit{relatively minimal} in the sense that it cannot be factorized through another resolution. Crepant resolutions have many good properties but they do not always exist; for instance the affine cone over the second Veronese embedding \(v_2(\mathbb{P}^3) \subseteq \mathbb{P}^9\) has no crepant resolution. In [Sel. Math., New Ser. 13, No. 4, 661--696 (2007; Zbl 1156.18006)], \textit{A. Kuznetsov} introduced the more general notion of \textit{categorical crepant resolutions} in order to try to get around the possible absence of geometric crepant resolutions. Also, he obtains conditions for a Gorenstein variety with rational singularities to admit a categorical crepant resolution. In particular, he shows that \(v_2(\mathbb{P}^3)\) admits a categorical crepant resolution. The goal of the present article is to go one step further and extend Kuznetsov's results of [loc. cit.] to Gorenstein determinantal varieties. More precisely, the author formalizes the notion of \textit{wonderful resolution of singularities} (Definition 2.2), by analogy with the theory of wonderful compactifications of semisimple linear algebraic groups, and he proves that any Gorenstein variety with rational singularities having a wonderful resolution of singularities admits a categorical crepant resolution (Theorem 1.7). As a consequence, he obtains that all Gorenstein determinantal varieties (square as well as symmetric and skew-symmetric) admit a categorical crepant resolution (Corollary 1.9). ``The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the author gives the definition of a wonderful resolution of singularities and study its basic cohomological properties. He also exhibits some examples of varieties which have a wonderful resolution of singularities. In Section 3, he proves the main theorem. This is the technical core of the paper. In Section 4, he discusses some minimality properties for categorical crepant resolutions of singularities and some existence problems related to prehomogeneous spaces.''