An approach of the minimal model program for horospherical varieties via moment polytopes (Q890768)

The minimal model program (MMP) plays a central role in the birational classification of algebraic varieties. The MMP for toric varieties was first established by \textit{M. Reid} [Prog. Math. 36, 395--418 (1983; Zbl 0571.14020)]. Everything related to the MMP for toric varieties is fully understood in terms of convex geometry. \textit{M. Brion} [Duke Math. J. 72, No. 2, 369--404 (1993; Zbl 0821.14029)] showed that the MMP works for spherical varieties. However, it is still difficult to explicitly compute examples. Thus the author of the present paper reduces the study to horospherical varieties. Recall that the family of horospherical varieties is contained in the family of spherical varieties and contains toric varieties. The main result of the paper under review is the explicit description of each step of the special MMP for \(\mathbb{Q}\)-Gorenstein projective horospherical varieties using continuous transformations of moment polytopes. For this purpose, one has to choose an ample Cartier divisor. This special MMP is an example of the MMP with scaling. The author also shows that the original MMP for \(\mathbb{Q}\)-factorial horospherical varieties can be recovered by choosing a good divisor. In the final section, many interesting examples are given.