On the deformation to the normal cone in Arakelov geometry

Abstract

We present an Arakelov theoretic version of the deformation to the normal cone. In particular, the geometric data is enriched with a deformation of a Hermitian line bundle. We introduce numerical invariants called arithmetic Hilbert invariants and prove the conservation of these invariants along the deformation. In a following article, this conservation of number theorem will allow a demonstration of the arithmetic Hilbert-Samuel theorem.