Rational singularities and quotients by holomorphic group actions

Abstract

We prove that rational and 1-rational singularities of complex spaces are stable under taking quotients by holomorphic actions of reductive and compact Lie groups. This extends a result of Boutot to the analytic category and yields a refinement of his result in the algebraic category. As one of the main technical tools vanishing theorems for cohomology groups with support on fibres of resolutions are proven.