We introduce a new equivalence relation for complete alge- braic varieties with canonical singularities, generated by birational equivalence, by flat algebraic deformations (of varieties with canon- ical singularities), and by quasi-´etale morphisms, i.e., morphisms which are unramified in codimension 1. We denote the above equivalence by A.Q.E.D. : = Algebraic-Quasi-´ Etale- Deformation. A completely similar equivalence relation, denoted by C-Q.E.D., can be considered for compact complex spaces with canonical sin- gularities. By a recent theorem of Siu, dimension and Kodaira dimension are invariants for A.Q.E.D. of complex varieties. We address the interesting question whether conversely two al- gebraic varieties of the same dimension and with the same Ko- daira dimension are Q.E.D. - equivalent (A.Q.E.D., or at least C-Q.E.D.), the answer being positive for curves by well known results. Using Enriques’ (resp. Kodaira’s) classification we show first that the answer to the C-Q.E.D. question is positive for special algebraic surfaces (those with Kodaira dimension at most 1), resp. for compact complex surfaces with Kodaira dimension 0, 1 and even first Betti number. The appendix by S¨onke Rollenske shows that the hypothesis of even first Betti number is necessary: he proves that any sur- face which is C-Q.E.D.-equivalent to a Kodaira surface is itself a Kodaira surface. We show also that the answer to the A.Q.E.D. question is pos- itive for complex algebraic surfaces of Kodaira dimension ≤ 1. The answer to the Q.E.D. question is instead negative for sur- faces of general type: the other appendix, due to Fritz Grunewald, is devoted to showing that the (rigid) Kuga-Shavel type surfaces of general type obtained as quotients of the bidisk via discrete groups constructed from quaternion algebras belong to countably many distinct Q.E.D. equivalence classes.

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We provide a refinement of the Poincaré inequality on the torus $\mathbb{T}^{d}$ : there exists a set $\mathcal{B} \subset \mathbb{T} ^{d}$ of directions such that for every $\alpha \in \mathcal{B}$ there is a $c_{\alpha } > 0$ with $$\begin{aligned} \|\nabla f\|_{L^{2}(\mathbb{T}^{d})}^{d-1} \| \langle \nabla f, \alpha \rangle \|_{L^{2}(\mathbb{T}^{d})} \geq c_{\alpha }\|f\| _{L^{2}(\mathbb{T}^{d})}^{d} \quad \mbox{for all}~f\in H^{1}\bigl( \mathbb{T}^{d}\bigr)~ \mbox{with mean 0.} \end{aligned}$$ The derivative $\langle \nabla f, \alpha \rangle $ does not detect any oscillation in directions orthogonal to $\alpha $ , however, for certain $\alpha $ the geodesic flow in direction $\alpha $ is sufficiently mixing to compensate for that defect. On the two-dimensional torus $\mathbb{T}^{2}$ the inequality holds for $\alpha = (1, \sqrt{2})$ but is not true for $\alpha = (1,e)$ . Similar results should hold at a great level of generality on very general domains.

We define non-pluripolar products of an arbitrary number of closed positive (1, 1)-currents on a compact Kähler manifold$X$. Given a big (1, 1)-cohomology class$α$on$X$(i.e. a class that can be represented by a strictly positive current) and a positive measure$μ$on$X$of total mass equal to the volume of$α$and putting no mass on pluripolar sets, we show that$μ$can be written in a unique way as the top-degree self-intersection in the non-pluripolar sense of a closed positive current in$α$. We then extend Kolodziedj’s approach to sup-norm estimates to show that the solution has minimal singularities in the sense of Demailly if$μ$has$L$^{1+$ε$}-density with respect to Lebesgue measure. If$μ$is smooth and positive everywhere, we prove that$T$is smooth on the ample locus of$α$provided$α$is nef. Using a fixed point theorem, we finally explain how to construct singular Kähler–Einstein volume forms with minimal singularities on varieties of general type.

We study adiabatic limits of Ricci-flat K¨ahler metrics on a Calabi-Yau manifold which is the total space of a holomorphic fibration when the volume of the fibers goes to zero. By establishing some new a priori estimates for the relevant complex Monge-Amp`ere equation, we show that the Ricci-flat metrics collapse (away from the singular fibers) to a metric on the base of the fibration. This metric has Ricci curvature equal to a WeilPetersson metric that measures the variation of complex structure of the Calabi-Yau fibers. This generalizes results of Gross-Wilson for K3 surfaces to higher dimensions.