Quotients of an affine variety by an action of a torus (Q2440505)

The article under review concerns quotients of affine varieties by torus actions. For an affine variety \(X\) endowed with an action of a torus \(T\) the authors study its toric Chow quotient, toric Hilbert scheme and the Chow morphism between them restricted to the main components. They introduce the main component \(H_0\) of the toric Hilbert scheme, which parametrizes general \(T\)-orbit closures in \(X\) and their flat limits. They also give a geometric description of the Altmann-Hausen family of \(T\)-varieties over the normalization \((X/_CT)_0^{\mathrm{norm}}\) of the main component of the toric Chow quotient of \(X\) by \(T\), introduced by \textit{K. Altmann} and \textit{J. Hausen} [Math. Ann. 334, No. 3, 557--607 (2006; Zbl 1193.14060)]. Define \[ W_x = \overline{\{(x,q(x)) : x \in X^{\mathrm{ss}}\}} \subseteq X\times (X/_CT)_0, \] where \(q\) is the quotient map and \(X^{\mathrm{ss}}\) is the set of points which are semistable with respect to all characters of \(T\). Then the Altmann-Hausen family is shown to be the normalization of \(W_X\) together with the projection to \((X/_CT)_0^{\mathrm{norm}}\). The main result of the article describes the relation between the universal family \(U_0 \rightarrow H_0\) and the family \(W_X \rightarrow (X/_CT)_0\). The authors prove that the restriction of the toric Chow morphism \(H_0 \rightarrow (X/_CT)_0\), coming from a generalization of the construction given by \textit{M. Haiman} and \textit{B. Sturmfels} [J. Algebr. Geom. 13, No. 4, 725--769 (2004; Zbl 1072.14007)], lifts to a birational projective morphism \(U_0 \rightarrow W_0\). The last section concerns the case when \(X\) is a toric variety and \(T\) is a subtorus of its big torus. The results from previous sections are rephrased in terms of fans. In particular, an explicit description of the fan of the Altmann-Hausen family is given.