Oka tubes in holomorphic line bundles

Abstract

Let $(E,h)$ be a semipositive hermitian holomorphic line bundle on a compact complex manifold $X$ with $\dim X>1$. Assume that for each point $x\in X$ there exists a divisor $D\in |E|$ in the complete linear system determined by $E$ whose complement $X\setminus D$ is a Stein neighbourhood of $x$ with the density property. Then, the disc bundle $\Delta_h(E)=\{e\in E:|e|_h<1\}$ is an Oka manifold while $D_h(E)=\{e\in E:|e|_h>1\}$ is a Kobayashi hyperbolic domain. In particular, the zero section of $E$ admits a basis of Oka neighbourhoods $\{|e|_h<c\}$ with $c>0$. We show that this holds if $X$ is a rational homogeneous manifold of dimension $>1$. This class of manifolds includes complex projective spaces, Grassmannians, and flag manifolds. This phenomenon contributes to the heuristic principle that Oka properties are related to metric positivity of complex manifolds.