Moduli of products of stable varieties

Abstract

We study the moduli space of a product of stable varieties over the field of complex numbers, as defined via the minimal model program. Our main results are: (a) taking products gives a well-defined morphism from the product of moduli spaces of stable varieties to the moduli space of a product of stable varieties, (b) this map is always finite \'etale, and (c) this map very often is an isomorphism. Our results generalize and complete the work of Van Opstall in dimension 1. The local results rely on a study of the cotangent complex using some derived algebro-geometric methods, while the global ones use some differential-geometric input.