Mustafin varieties, moduli spaces and tropical geometry

Abstract

AbstractMustafin varieties are flat degenerations of projective spaces, induced by a set of lattices in a vector space over a non-archimedean field. They were introduced by Mustafin (Math USSR-Sbornik 34(2):187, 1978) in the 70s in order to generalise Mumford’s groundbreaking work on the unformisation of curves to higher dimension. These varieties have a rich combinatorial structure as can be seen in pioneering work of Cartwright et al. (Selecta Math 17(4):757–793, 2011). In this paper, we introduce a new approach to Mustafin varieties in terms of images of rational maps, which were studied in Li (IMRN, 2017). Applying tropical intersection theory and tropical convex hull computations, we use this method to give a new combinatorial description of the irreducible components of the special fibers of Mustafin varieties. Finally, we outline a first application of our results in limit linear series theory.