Log homogeneous compactifications of some classical groups

Abstract

We generalize in positive characteristics some results of Bien and Brion on log homogeneous compactifications of a homogeneous space under the action of a connected reductive group. We also construct an explicit smooth log homogeneous compactification of the general linear group by successive blow-ups starting from a grassmannian. By taking fixed points of certain involutions on this compactification, we obtain smooth log homogeneous compactifications of the special orthogonal and the symplectic groups.