5.3 Conjectural meaning of NA MA II [00BK]
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5.3 Conjectural meaning of NA MA II
In this section we will speculate on the concrete meaning of the Boucksom-Favre-Jonsson solution to the NA Calabi conjecture (cf. section 3.5). Let be a polarized algebraic degeneration family of Calabi-Yau manifolds, which needs not be a maximal degeneration. Let be a semistable snc model. An analogue of the Lebesgue measure exists in this setting, which is supported on the essential skeleton . It can be found by the ideas outlined in section 3.1. To describe it, denote , and be any -dimensional face of , corresponding to with local defining functions . The holomorphic volume form on induces a holomorphic volume form on , called its PoincarΓ© residue , determined by the equality in :
This is independent of the choice of local coordinates . Then up to normalising by a global multiplicative constant, on the interior of ,
| (16) |
Notice it is proportional to , which explains the name βLebesgue measureβ. The union of the -dimensional open faces of has the full -measure, which is one by our normalisation.
We are interested in the distinguished solution to the NA MA equation on defined by
| (17) |
To give an interpretation, we boldly assume that , which can be regarded as a strong version of the comparison property. Then we are in the setting of section 5.2.
We begin with the interior of -dimensional faces of , which can be viewed as the generic region. Comparing with the heuristic formula (15), and making regularity assumptions on , we deduce a second order PDE
| (18) |
where defines a polynomial in the gradient of .
On any other face of dimension , not necessarily on ,
There are two obvious mechanisms for this to happen:
- β’
We may have the homogeneous real MA equation . There is a basic mechanism for this: notice that the model choice is not canonical, and one can blow up to obtain higher models. For simple blowups, either one subdivides an existent face, or one creates new faces. On any new face is automatic, because implies that is independent of the new coordinate variable.
- β’
We may have , which is an algebraic condition on the gradient of . The author speculates that this option happens for -dimensional faces on , and its role is to match the gradients when we cross from one -dimensional open face of to another. In Remark 5.1 we suggest may be a nef class on , and our equation precisely says this class has zero volume. The birational geometric significance seems well worth investigating. We now discuss some of the simplest ways this mechanism could work:
Example 5.2.
When , namely in the maximal degeneration case, for simplicity we consider an -dimensional face of , such that there are only two -dimensional faces of containing , and they both lie on . Then the degree condition imposes a matching condition on the gradient of across the -dim face.
We consider a very concrete local example where ,
and the two divisors intersect transversely at , giving rise to the two -dimensional faces. All divisors are reduced. The complex geometric local model for comprises of two charts and . On the first chart for , and is the affine coordinate on . On the second chart for , , and is the affine coordinate on . The transition on the overlap is
The holomorphic volume form , and the coordinate . Locally on
On the two -dimensional faces the coordinates are and respectively, satisfying the linear constraints and , so we can eliminate . By adjusting we can make it zero in the local model. The potential satisfies the real MA equation on the two -dimensional faces:
and the problem is to match them on . The complex geometry suggests that the domain of the coordinates can be extended outside the original -simplices, by the identificaton
and the real MA equation is satisfied also on . In terms of gradients at ,
The first conditions merely mean the tangent derivatives along agree. The normal derivative matching condition precisely says
From a different perspective, the zero degree condition explains why can be invisible to the metric, so is allowed to remain smooth across .
Example 5.3.
Example 5.4.
For , consider a -dimensional face of , such that there are two -dimensional faces of containing , and they both lie on . A very simple geometric situation is when is the smooth total space of a possibly singular -fibration over an -dim smooth variety , and the two 1-dimensional faces correspond to two disjoint sections of the -fibration, so . A natural way to make and nef for , is to ask to be the pullback of a nef class on the base . We regard this nef class as the limiting element of as approaches from either of the -dimensional faces. Then the matching condition is naturally seen as the continuity of across the -dimensional face. This example may be relevant for the Ooguri-Vafa type neck region in [25][42] (cf. [42, section 7.1]). The possibility for the -fibration to develop nodal fibres is related to the monopole bubbling phenemenon in these papers.