On compact splitting complex submanifolds of quotients of bounded symmetric domains

In the current article our primary objects of study are compact complex submanifolds of quotient manifolds of irreducible bounded symmetric domains by torsion free discrete lattices of automorphisms. We are interested in the characterization of the totally geodesic submanifolds among compact splitting complex submanifolds, i.e. under the assumption that the tangent sequence splits holomorphically over the submanifold.Comment: Accepted for publication in SCIENCE CHINA Mathematic

Rigidity of irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces of the compact type under K"ahler deformation

We study deformations of irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces $S$ of the compact type, known to be locally rigid, as projective-algberaic manifolds and prove that no jump of complex structures can occur. For each $S$ of rank $\ge 2$ there is an associated reductive linear group $G$ such that $S$ admits a holomorphic $G$-structure, corresponding to a reduction of the structure group of the tangent bundle. $S$ is characterized as the unique simply-connected compact complex manifold admitting such a $G$-structure which is at the same time integrable. To prove the deformation rigidity of $S$ it suffices that the corresponding integrable $G$-structures converge. We argue by contradiction using the deformation theory of rational curves. Assuming that a jump of complex structures occurs, cones of vectors tangent to degree-1 rational curves on the special fiber $X_0$ are linearly degenerate, thus defining a proper meromorphic distribution $W$ on $X_0$. We prove that such $W$ cannot possibly exist. On the one hand, integrability of $W$ would contradict the fact that $b_2(X)=1$. On the other hand, we prove that $W$ would be automatically integrable by producing families of integral complex surfaces of $W$ as pencils of degree-1 rational curves. For the verification that there are enough integral surfaces we need a description of generic cones on the special fiber. We show that they are in fact images of standard cones under linear projections. We achieve this by studying deformations of normalizations of Chow spaces of minimal rational curves marked at a point, which are themselves Hermitian symmetric, irreducible except in the case of Grassmannians

Ax-Schanuel for Shimura varieties

We prove the Ax-Schanuel theorem for a general (pure) Shimura variety

Nonexistence of holomorphic submersions between complex unit balls equivariant with respect to a lattice and their generalizations

In this article we prove first of all the nonexistence of holomorphic submersions other than covering maps between compact quotients of complex unit balls, with a proof that works equally well in a more general equivariant setting. For a non-equidimensional surjective holomorphic map between compact ball quotients, our method applies to show that the set of critical values must be nonempty and of codimension 1. In the equivariant setting the line of arguments extend to holomorphic mappings of maximal rank into the complex projective space or the complex Euclidean space, yielding in the latter case a lower estimate on the dimension of the singular locus of certain holomorphic maps defined by integrating holomorphic 1-forms. In another direction, we extend the nonexistence statement on holomorphic submersions to the case of ball quotients of finite volume, provided that the target complex unit ball is of dimension m>=2, giving in particular a new proof that a local biholomorphism between noncompact m-ball quotients of finite volume must be a covering map whenever m>=2. Finally, combining our results with Hermitian metric rigidity, we show that any holomorphic submersion from a bounded symmetric domain into a complex unit ball equivariant with respect to a lattice must factor through a canonical projection to yield an automorphism of the complex unit ball, provided that either the lattice is cocompact or the ball is of dimension at least 2

Birationality of the tangent map for minimal rational curves

For a uniruled projective manifold, we prove that a general rational curve of minimal degree through a general point is uniquely determined by its tangent vector. As applications, among other things we give a new proof, using no Lie theory, of our earlier result that a holomorphic map from a rational homogeneous space of Picard number 1 onto a projective manifold different from the projective space must be a biholomorphic map.Comment: AMS-tex, 14 pages, Dedicated to Yum-Tong Siu on his 60th birthda

Proper holomorphic maps between bounded symmetric domains with small rank differences

In this paper we study the rigidity of proper holomorphic maps $f\colon \Omega\to\Omega'$ between irreducible bounded symmetric domains $\Omega$ and $\Omega'$ with small rank differences: $2\leq \text{rank}(\Omega')< 2\,\text{rank}(\Omega)-1$. More precisely, if either $\Omega$ and $\Omega'$ have the same type or $\Omega$ is of type~III and $\Omega'$ is of type~I, then up to automorphisms, $f$ is of the form $f=\imath\circ F$, where $F = F_1\times F_2\colon \Omega\to \Omega_1'\times \Omega_2'$. Here $\Omega_1'$, $\Omega_2'$ are bounded symmetric domains, the map $F_1\colon \Omega \to \Omega_1'$ is a standard embedding, $F_2: \Omega \to \Omega_2'$, and $\imath\colon \Omega'_1\times \Omega'_2 \to \Omega'$ is a totally geodesic holomorphic isometric embedding. Moreover we show that, under the rank condition above, there exists no proper holomorphic map $f: \Omega \to \Omega'$ if $\Omega$ is of type~I and $\Omega'$ is of type~III, or $\Omega$ is of type~II and $\Omega'$ is either of type~I or III. By considering boundary values of proper holomorphic maps on maximal boundary components of $\Omega$, we construct rational maps between moduli spaces of subgrassmannians of compact duals of $\Omega$ and $\Omega'$, and induced CR-maps between CR-hypersurfaces of mixed signature, thereby forcing the moduli map to satisfy strong local differential-geometric constraints (or that such moduli maps do not exist), and complete the proofs from rigidity results on geometric substructures modeled on certain admissible pairs of rational homogeneous spaces of Picard number 1