Potentially Du Bois spaces

Abstract

We investigate properties of potentially Du Bois singularities, that is, those that occur on the underlying space of a Du Bois pair. We show that a normal variety $X$ with potentially Du Bois singularities and Cartier canonical divisor $K_X$ is necessarily log canonical, and hence Du Bois. As an immediate corollary, we obtain the Lipman-Zariski conjecture for varieties with potentially Du Bois singularities. We also show that for a normal surface singularity, the notions of Du Bois and potentially Du Bois singularities coincide. In contrast, we give an example showing that in dimension at least three, a normal potentially Du Bois singularity $x \in X$ need not be Du Bois even if one assumes the canonical divisor $K_X$ to be $\mathbb{Q}$-Cartier.