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1. Volume of a line bundle
In this section we give the definition of the volume of a divisor and discuss its mean- ing in the classical case of ample divisors. As before X is a smooth complex projective variety of dimension d.3 Let D be a divisor on X. The invariant on which we’ll focus originates in the Riemann–Roch problem on X, which asks for the computation of the dimensions 0 0 h X, OX (mD) =def dimC H X, OX (mD) as a function of m. The precise determination of these dimensions is of course extremely subtle even in quite simple situations [38], [9], [24]. Our focus will lie rather on their asymptotic behavior. In most interesting cases the space of sections in question grows like md, and we introduce an invariant that measures this growth. Definition 1.1. The volume of D is defined to be 0 h X, OX (mD) volX (D) = lim sup d . m→∞ m /d! The volume of a line bundle is defined similarly. Note that by definition, D is big if and only if volX (D) > 0. It is true, but not not entirely trivial, that the limsup is actually a limit (cf. [27, Section 11.4.A]).
2 0 dim X Recall that an integral divisor D is big if h X, OX (mD) grows like m for m ≫ 0. This definition extends in a natural way to Q-divisors (and with a little more work to R-divisors), and one shows that bigness depends only on the numerical class of a divisor. 3For the most part, the non-singularity hypothesis on X is extraneous. We include it here only in order to avoid occasional technicalities. ASYMPTOTICINVARIANTSOFLINEBUNDLES 3
In the classical case of ample divisors, the situation is extremely simple. In fact, if D is ample, then it follows from the asymptotic Riemann–Roch theorem (cf. [27, 1.2.19]) that 0 h X, OX (mD) = χ X, OX (mD) md = D d · + O (md−1) d! for m ≫ 0. Therefore, the volume of an ample divisor D is simply its top self-intersection number: Classical Theorem 1.2 (Volume of ample divisors). If D is ample, then
d d volX (D) = D = c1 OX (D) . ZX This computation incidentally explains the terminology: up to constants, the integral in question computes the volume of X with respect to a K¨ahler metric arising from the positive line bundle OX (D). We remark that the statement remains true assuming only i d−1 that D is nef, since in this case h X, OX (mD) = O(m ) for i> 0. One can in turn deduce from Theorem 1.2 many pleasant features of the volume function in the classical case. First, there is a geometric interpretation springing from its computation as an intersection number. Classical Theorem 1.3 (Geometric interpretation of volume). Let D be an ample di- visor. Fix m ≫ 0 sufficiently large so that mD is very ample, and choose d general divisors
E1,...,Ed ∈ |mD|. Then 1 vol (D) = · # E ∩ . . . ∩ E . X md 1 d Next, one reads off from Theorem 1.2 the behavior of volX as a function of D: Classical Theorem 1.4 (Variational properties of volume). Given an ample or nef divisor D, volX (D) depends only on the numerical equivalence class of D. It is computed by a polynomial function
volX : Nef(X) −→ R on the nef cone of X.
Finally, the intersection form appearing in Theorem 1.4 satisfies a higher-dimensional extension of the Hodge index theorem, originally due to Matsusaka, Kovhanski and Teissier. Classical Theorem 1.5 (Log-concavity of volume). Given any two nef classes ξ,ξ′ ∈ Nef(X), one has the inequality ′ 1/d 1/d ′ 1/d volX (ξ + ξ ) ≥ volX (ξ) + volX (ξ ) . 4 L.EIN,R.LAZARSFELD,M.MUSTAT¸ A,ˇ M. NAKAMAYE, AND M. POPA
This follows quite easily from the classical Hodge index theorem on surfaces: see for instance [27, Section 1.6] and the references cited therein for the derivation. We refer also to the papers [19] and [34] of Gromov and Okounkov for an interesting discussion of this and related inequalities. In the next section, we will see that many of these properties extend to the case of arbitrary big divisors.
2. Volume of Big Divisors
We now turn to the volume of arbitrary big divisors. It is worth noting right off that there is one respect in which the general situation differs from the classical setting. Namely, it follows from Theorem 1.2 that the volume of an ample line bundle is a positive integer. However this is no longer true in general: the volume of a big divisor can be arbitrarily small, and can even be irrational. Example 2.1. Let C be a smooth curve, fix an integer a> 1, and consider the rank two vector bundle
E = OC (1 − a) · p ⊕ OC p on C, p ∈ C being some fixed point. Set
X = P(E) , L = OP(E)(1).
1 Then L is big, and volX (L)= a . (See [27, Example 2.3.7].)
The first examples of line bundles having irrational volume were constructed by Cutkosky [8] in the course of his proof of the non-existence of Zariski decompositions in dimensions ≥ 3. We give here a geometric account of his construction. Example 2.2 (Integral divisor with irrational volume). Let E be a general elliptic curve, and let V = E × E be the product of E with itself. Thus V is an abelian surface, and if 1 3 E is general then V has Picard number ρ(V ) = 3, so that N (V )R = R . The important fact for us is that Eff(V ) = Nef(V ) ⊆ N 1(V ) = R3 is the circular cone of classes having non-negative self-intersection (and non-negative intersection with a hyperplane class): see Figure 1. Now choose integral divisors A, B on V , where A ample but B is not nef, and write a , b ∈ N 1(V ) for the classes of the divisors in question. Set
X = P OV (A) ⊕ OV (B) , and take L = OP(1) to be the Serre line bundle on X. We claim that volX (L) will be irrational for general choices of A and B. ASYMPTOTICINVARIANTSOFLINEBUNDLES 5
a Nef(V)
b
Figure 1. Irrational volume
To see this we interpret volX (L) as an integral. In fact, let q(ξ) = ξ · ξ V be the quadratic intersection form on N 1(V ) , and put R q(ξ) if ξ ∈ Nef(V ) q(ξ) = ( 0 if ξ 6∈ Nef(V ), Then, as in [27, Section 2.3.B],b one finds that 3! 1 vol (L) = · q (1 − t)a + tb dt X 2 (1) Z0 3! σ = · bq (1 − t)a + tb dt, 2 Z0 where σ = σ(a, b) is the largest value of s such that (1 − s)a+ sb is nef.4 But for general choices of a and b, σ is a quadratic irrationality — it arises as a root of the quadratic equation q (1 − s)a + sb = 0 — so the integral in (1) is typically irrational. The situation is illustrated in Figure 1. In his thesis [37], Wolfe extends this interpretation of the volume as an integral to much more general projective bundles.
We now turn to analogues of the classical properties of the volume, starting with Theorem 1.3. Let X be a smooth projective variety of dimension d, and let D be a big divisor on X. Take a large integer m ≫ 0, and fix d general divisors
E1,...,Ed ∈ |mD|.
If D fails to be ample, then it essentially never happens that the intersection of the Ei is a finite set. Rather every divisor E ∈ |mD| will contain a positive dimensional base locus Bm ⊆ X, and the Ei will meet along Bm as well as at a finite set of additional
4The stated formula follows via the isomorphism 0 0 m H X, OP(m) = H V,S OV (A) ⊕ OV (B) using the fact that if D is any divisor on V , then (D·D) 0 if D is ample h V, OV (D) = 2 (0 if D is not nef. 6 L.EIN,R.LAZARSFELD,M.MUSTAT¸ A,ˇ M. NAKAMAYE, AND M. POPA points. One thinks of this finite set as consisting of the “moving intersection points” of E1,...,Ed, since (unlike Bm) they vary with the divisors Ei. The following generalization of Theorem 1.3, which is essentially due to Fujita [18], shows that in general volX (D) measures the number of these moving intersection points: Theorem 2.3 (Geometric interpretation of volume of big divisors). Always assuming that D is big, fix for m ≫ 0 d general divisors
E1 ,...,Ed ∈ |mD|
when m ≫ 0, and write Bm = Bs |mD| . Then