Degenerations and Stability of Kähler Structures on Calabi--Yau Manifolds

Abstract

In this paper, we study the degeneration and stability of Kähler structures on Calabi--Yau manifolds, namely compact Kähler manifolds with trivial canonical bundles, from the viewpoint of deformation theory and Hodge theory. Using the global deformation theory of Calabi--Yau manifolds together with estimates relating the Weil--Petersson distance and Beltrami differentials, we prove that certain limits of Calabi--Yau manifolds remain Kähler. As applications, we give a new proof of Siu's theorem on the Kählerness of K3 surfaces. We further prove that deformation limits of hyperkähler manifolds with bounded periods remain Kähler, which gives a complete and stronger solution to the conjecture of Soldatenkov--Verbitsky. Finally, we prove that the moduli spaces of stable sheaves on K3 surfaces are hyperkähler manifolds, which gives a complete solution to the conjecture of Perego.