We construct and study the moduli of stable hypersurfaces in toric orbifolds. Let X be a projective toric orbifold and $\alpha \in \operatorname{Cl}(X)$ an ample class. The moduli space is constructed as a quotient of the linear system $|\alpha|$ by $G = \operatorname{Aut}(X)$. Since the group G is non-reductive in general, we use new techniques of non-reductive geometric invariant theory. Using the A-discriminant of Gelfand, Kapranov and Zelevinsky, we prove semistability for quasismooth hypersurfaces of toric orbifolds. Further, we prove the existence of a quasi-projective moduli space of quasismooth hypersurfaces in a weighted projective space when the weighted projective space satisfies a certain condition. We also discuss how to proceed when this condition is not satisfied. We prove that the automorphism group of a quasismooth hypersurface of weighted projective space is finite excluding some low degrees.

Let G be a reductive algebraic group—possibly non-connected—over a field k, and let H be a subgroup of G. If $G= {GL }_n$ , then there is a degeneration process for obtaining from H a completely reducible subgroup $H'$ of G; one takes a limit of H along a cocharacter of G in an appropriate sense. We generalise this idea to arbitrary reductive G using the notion of G-complete reducibility and results from geometric invariant theory over non-algebraically closed fields due to the authors and Herpel. Our construction produces a G-completely reducible subgroup $H'$ of G, unique up to $G(k)$ -conjugacy, which we call a k-semisimplification of H. This gives a single unifying construction that extends various special cases in the literature (in particular, it agrees with the usual notion for $G= GL _n$ and with Serre’s ‘G-analogue’ of semisimplification for subgroups of $G(k)$ from [19]). We also show that under some extra hypotheses, one can pick $H'$ in a more canonical way using the Tits Centre Conjecture for spherical buildings and/or the theory of optimal destabilising cocharacters introduced by Hesselink, Kempf, and Rousseau.

A polarized variety is K-stable if, for any test configuration, the Donaldson–Futaki invariant is positive. In this paper, inspired by classical geometric invariant theory, we describe the space of test configurations as a limit of a direct system of Tits buildings. We show that the Donaldson–Futaki invariant, conveniently normalized, is a continuous function on this space. We also introduce a pseudo-metric on the space of test configurations. Recall that K-stability can be enhanced by requiring that the Donaldson–Futaki invariant is positive on any admissible filtration of the co-ordinate ring. We show that admissible filtrations give rise to Cauchy sequences of test configurations with respect to the above mentioned pseudo-metric.

We give a decomposition formula for computing the state polytope of a reducible variety in terms of the state polytopes of its components: if a polarized projective variety X is a chain of subvarieties Xi satisfying some further conditions, then the state polytope of X is the Minkowski sum of the state polytopes of Xi translated by a vector τ, which can be readily computed from the ideal of Xi . The decomposition is in the strongest sense in that the vertices of the state polytope of X are precisely the sum of vertices of the state polytopes of Xi translated by τ. We also give a similar decomposition formula for the Hilbert–Mumford index of the Hilbert points of X. We give a few examples of the state polytope and the Hilbert–Mumford index computation of reducible curves, which are interesting in the context of the log minimal model program for the moduli space of stable curves.

We prove by the Hilbert–Mumford criterion that a slope stable polarized weighted pointed nodal curve is Chow asymptotic stable. This generalizes the result of Caporaso on stability of polarized nodal curves and of Hassett on weighted pointed stable curves polarized by the weighted dualizing sheaves. It also solves a question raised by Mumford and Gieseker, to prove the Chow asymptotic stability of stable nodal curves by the Hilbert–Mumford criterion.

The purpose of this note is to present a somewhat unexpected relation between diophantine approximations and the geometric invariant theory. The link is given by Mumford's degree of contact. We show that destabilizing flags of Chow-unstable projective varieties provide systems of diophantine approximations which are better than those given by Schmidt's subspace theorem, and we give examples of these systems.