An application of Cartan's equivalence method to Hirschowitz's conjecture on the formal principle

DOI10.4007/ANNALS.2019.189.3.7MaRDI QIDQ2320604zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 23 August 2019

Published in Annals of Mathematics. Second Series (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.09490

Cartan-Kähler theorem equivalence method formal principle

Embedding of analytic spaces (32C22) Formal and graded complex spaces (32K07) Exterior differential systems (Cartan theory) (58A15)

Abstract: A conjecture of Hirschowitz's predicts that a globally generated vector bundle

W

on a compact complex manifold

A

satisfies the formal principle, i.e., the formal neighborhood of its zero section determines the germ of neighborhoods in the underlying complex manifold of the vector bundle

W

. By applying Cartan's equivalence method to a suitable differential system on the universal family of the Douady space of the complex manifold, we prove that this conjecture is true if

A

is a Fano manifold, or if the global sections of

W

separate points of

A

. Our method shows more generally that for any unobstructed compact submanifold

A

in a complex manifold, if the normal bundle is globally generated and its sections separate points of

A

, then a sufficiently general deformation of

A

satisfies the formal principle. In particular, a sufficiently general smooth free rational curve on a complex manifold satisfies the formal principle.

Review text

Let \(A\) be a compact complex submanifold of a complex manifold \(X\). The submanifold \(A \subset X\) is said to \textit{satisfy the formal principle} if given a compact submanifold \(\tilde{A}\) of a complex manifold \(\tilde{X}\), a formal isomorphism \(\psi: (A/X)_{\infty} \rightarrow (\tilde{A}/\tilde{X})_{\infty}\) between the formal neighbourhoods, and a positiver integer \(l\), we can find a biholomorphism \[ \Psi: (A/X)_{\mathcal{O}} \rightarrow (\tilde{A}/\tilde{X})_{\mathcal{O}} \] such that \(\Psi|_{(A/X)_l} = \psi|_{(A/X)_l}\). Here we have written \((A/X)_{l}\) for the \(l\)-th order neighbourhood and \((A/X)_{\mathcal{O}}\) for the germ of Euclidean neighbourhoods of \(A\) in \(X\). In order to compare the germ of \(A \subset X\) with the germ of the zero section of the normal bundle \(N_{A/X}\) (a question considered by many authors, e.g., [\textit{M. Abate} et al., Adv. Math. 220, No. 2, 620--656 (2009; Zbl 1161.32011)]) the author introduces the following terminology: A vector bundle \(W\) on a compact complex manifold \(A\) is said to satisfy the formal principle if the zero section \(0_A \subset W\) satisfies the formal principle in the classical sense. A conjecture of \textit{A. Hirschowitz} [Ann. Math. (2) 113, 501--514 (1981; Zbl 0421.32029)] states the following: Conjecture 1.3. Let \(A \subset X\) be an unobstructed compact submanifold of a complex manifold. Assume that the normal bundle \(N_{A/X}\) is globally generated, i.e., the sequence \[ 0 \rightarrow H^0(A,N_{A/X} \otimes m_x) \rightarrow H^0(A,N_{A/X}) \rightarrow N_{A/X,x} \rightarrow 0, \] where \(m_x\) is the maximal ideal at \(x \in A\), is exact at every \(x \in A.\) Then \(A \subset X\) satisfies the formal principle. This in turn predicts the following: Conjecture 1.4. A globally generated vector bundle on a compact complex manifold satisfies the formal principle. In this paper the author obtains new results in the direction of Conjectures 1.3 and 1.4 by viewing families of submanifolds on a complex manifold as a geometric structure in the sense of Cartan (equivalence method). The main result states that if the sections of the normal bundle separate points in the setting of Conjecture 1.3, then the formal principle holds for sufficiently general deformations of \(A\) in \(X\). More precisely, one main novelty of the paper is to prove statements in terms of the Douady space, for example the main result is of the following form: ``Let \(X\) be a complex manifold and let \(K\) be a subset of the Douady space satisfying certain hypotheses (here omitted for brevity). Then there exists a nowhere-dense subset \(S\) of \(K\) such that the submanifolds corresponding to any point of \(K \setminus S\) satisfies the formal principle. The author proceeds to give a number of applications of this result regarding globally generated vector bundles that satisfy the formal principle (towards Conjecture 1.4). In particular Conjecture 1.4 is proven for Fano manifolds. As a further application improvements to Cartan-Fubini type extension theorems are discussed, cf. [\textit{J.-M. Hwang} and \textit{N. Mok}, J. Math. Pures Appl. (9) 80, No. 6, 563--575 (2001; Zbl 1033.32013)], as part of a program to replace difficult-to-check transcendental conditions by algebraic conditions.

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