Chebyshev potentials, Fubini--Study metrics, and geometry of the space of K\"ahler metrics

TL;DR

This paper investigates the relationship between Chebyshev potentials, Fubini--Study metrics, and geodesics in the space of Kähler metrics, disproving a folklore conjecture and characterizing specific geodesics where the conjecture holds.

Contribution

It disproves a folklore conjecture relating Chebyshev potentials and geodesics in the space of Kähler metrics, providing explicit solutions and characterizations.

Findings

Disproved the conjecture that Chebyshev potential curves are linear if and only if they are geodesics.

Explicitly solved the Monge--Ampère equation for Fubini--Study geodesics.

Characterized Fubini--Study geodesics satisfying the conjecture.

Abstract

The Chebyshev potential of a K\"ahler potential on a projective variety, introduced by Witt Nystr\"om, is a convex function defined on the Okounkov body. It is a generalization of the symplectic potential of a torus-invariant K\"ahler potential on a toric variety, introduced by Guillemin, that is a convex function on the Delzant polytope. A folklore conjecture asserts that a curve of Chebyshev potentials associated to a curve in the space of K\"ahler potentials is linear in the time variable if and only if the latter curve is a geodesic in the Mabuchi metric. This is classically true in the special toric setting, and in general Witt Nystr\"om established the sufficiency. The goal of this article is to disprove this conjecture. More generally, we characterize the Fubini--Study geodesics for which the conjecture is true on projective space. The proof involves explicitly solving the Monge--Amp\`ere equation describing geodesics on the subspace of Fubini--Study metrics and computing their Chebyshev potentials.