A generalization of the Kobayashi-Ochiai theorem

If \(X\) is an \(n\)-dimensional compact Kähler manifold of general type, the well-known theorem of Kobayashi and Ochiai states that there are no nondegenerate holomorphic maps \(\varphi: {\mathbb C}^n\to X\). The results presented here refine that by considering compact Kähler manifolds generally and relating the growth of such maps to the positivity of the canonical bundle \(K_X\). Broadly speaking, the more positive \(K_X\) is, the faster the growth of~\(\varphi\). To state a precise result, we need Kodaira's notion of average degree: if \(X\) is equipped with a (Kähler) metric \(\omega\) and \(\varphi: \Delta_r\to X\) is a holomorphic map from the polydisc of radius \(r\) in \({\mathbb C}^n\), one defines the average degree to be \(\deg(\varphi|\Delta_r)=\int_{\Delta_r}\varphi^*\omega^n/\int_X\omega^n\). The first main theorem of this paper is that if \(\lim_{r\to\infty} {{1}\over{r^{2n}}}\deg(\varphi|\Delta_r)=0\) for some nondegenerate \(\varphi: {\mathbb C}^n\to X\), then \(K_X\) is not pseudo-effective. This refines a theorem of Kodaira, who proved that under the same hypotheses the plurigenera of \(X\) vanish. From this and a result of the second author and others [\textit{S. Boucksom, J.-P. Demailly, M. Păun} and \textit{T. Peternell}, ``The pseudo-effective cone of a compact Kähler manifold and varieties of negative Kodaira dimension, \url{arXiv:math/0405285}] it follows that if in addition \(X\) is projective, then it is uniruled. However, it is important to understand that this uniruledness is not obtained by compactifying or otherwise modifying~\(\varphi\): indeed the complement of the image of \(\varphi\) might have non-empty interior. The result of Boucksom et al. obtains its supply of rational curves from a completely different source, namely, Mori theory. The proof of the theorem is quite short and uses only some known convexity properties of psh functions and results about pseudo-effectivity. The second main theorem of the paper is stated in terms of the characteristic function \(T_\omega(\varphi,r)\), which serves as a substitute for the degree in the context of Nevanlinna theory. It is given by \(T_\omega(\varphi,r)=\int_0^r{{dt}\over{t^{2n-1}}}\int_{|z|<t}\varphi^*\omega\wedge \eta^{n-1}\), where \(\eta=i\partial\bar\partial |z|^2\) is the natural metric on \({\mathbb C}^n\). Then, the second main theorem of the paper states that if \((X,\omega)\) is a compact Kähler manifold of dimension~\(n\) and \(K_X\) is pseudo-effective of numerical dimension~\(\nu\), then for any nondegenerate \(\varphi:{\mathbb C}^n\to X\) there is a constant \(C\) such that for all \(r>0\) \[ T_\omega(\varphi,r)^{1-{{\nu}\over{n}}}\geq Cr^2. \] This can also be thought of as a refinement of the theorem of Kobayashi-Ochiai. The authors conjecture that if \(X\) is a compact Kähler manifold with \(K_X\) pseudo-effective that is covered by \({\mathbb C}^n\), then the numerical dimension \(\nu=\nu(K_X)\) is zero. That would imply that if a projective manifold has \({\mathbb C}^n\) as its universal cover, then it is covered by a torus, which was earlier conjectured by Iitaka. The proof of this second theorem is more complicated. It invokes the theorem of Yau on Calabi's conjecture to convert numerical properties of \(K_X\) into metric ones, and then applies some careful analysis and results of Demailly on Lelong numbers. Finally, the authors introduce the quasi-conformal volume pseudoform and and the notion of being quasi-conformal on average for maps \(\varphi: {\mathbb C}^n\to X\). They show that \(\nu(K_X)\geq 1\) if \(K_X\) is nef and the quasi-conformal volume pseudoform is nondegenerate, and that \(\nu(K_X)=0\) if \(K_X\) is pseudo-effective and there is a quasi-conformal on average map \(\varphi: {\mathbb C}^n\to X\).

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