Combinatorics and Hodge theory of degenerations of abelian varieties: A survey of the Mumford construction

Abstract

We survey the Mumford construction of degenerating abelian varieties, with a focus on the analytic version of the construction, and its relation to toric geometry. Moreover, we study the geometry and Hodge theory of multivariable degenerations of abelian varieties associated to regular matroids, and extend some fundamental results of Clemens on 1-parameter semistable degenerations to the multivariable setting.

v3: details and references added, corrections to some parts of section 6. 83 pages, 23 figures